


Sorrows and Calm Skies

by Bbaegi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22817815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bbaegi/pseuds/Bbaegi
Summary: Baekhyun kissed to kill. Up until the day he found a mouth he would kill to kiss.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 42
Kudos: 69





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> so I think the writer in me kinda resurrected so IM BACK?? pretty excited about this fic tbh it's gonna be a ride and I promise you I won't drop this one halfway through bc I'm actually very excited to write it aqksdjfb also I have like a third of it already written I think! anyway I hope you'll like it <3
> 
> disclaimer: this might be the weirdest thing I've ever written and it is inspired by several series I've watched such as Mr. Robot, Altered Carbon, Maniac, American Gods... Very good series y'all should watch tbh!

The door pushed a rusty wheeze out as it opened, coughed a mass of music out as it crashed against the wall, and spat out two nebulous forms before swinging closed again with a sharp sound of satisfaction.

The smoke vanished and laughter rose from them, much louder and lasting, dissipating into saturated breaths only much later, after a few wobbly steps. Baekhyun sliced through the hiccups when he pushed the man against the wall. Half of the man’s grin turned a bright pink, the irregular blink of his eyes casting shadows on his illuminated skin. It turned green then, with no transition. The lights in this district really sucked. There was no pattern. Pink, green, pink, purple, blue, pink. Whoever designed them really liked pink.

"You’re so alluring," Baekhyun heard, a praise kissing his jaw in a whisper. He laughed, jumpy, too high. He took a step back with a chortle when the man traced along his neck with the tip of his nose, the tickle of it preventing him from worrying about almost loosing his footing. He pushed him back against the wall again, hands on his chest. The man’s eyes were almost fully closed as he looked at Baekhyun. "So hypnotizing."

Alluring. Hypnotizing. People usually didn’t describe him that way. This guy made it really obvious that he was a writer. Too obvious. He’d bragged about it the whole night, between each glass of alcohol imported from the seas and the skies. His favorite drink seemed to be thunder. He loved dancing even if he was shit at it.

"Am I?" Baekhyun asked, blinking himself closer to the man’s face.

A hum, eyes closing, opening, teeth digging into a lower lip. Baekhyun looked down at it, studied it. His lips weren’t smooth nor soft, but dry. A tiny flake of skin looked ready to be ripped off at the corner of his lower lip.

Baekhyun pressed a hand against the wall, right next to the man’s head. His chest brushed his, pressed against it when he took a deep breath. Inside, the music was so loud Baekhyun could feel it purring against the palm of his hand through the cold steel of the wall.

"You are," the man sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, opening them again just as Baekhyun felt a hand slithering down his spine, sliding to hold onto his waist, pushing him closer. Baekhyun hummed, let himself press against the man’s body, let lips kiss along his jawline, here and there.

Fingers dug into his waist and friction shivered delight into him just as music burst out behind them, the dragged melody of an ad. A sensual female voice, an argumentation about the newest sex toy on the market, a soundtrack mostly made out of moans. Nothing unusual, Baekhyun focused on the task at hand. The task against his neck.

"Aren’t you going to kiss me?" he whispered, closing his eyes, stretching his neck out, barely moving his hips against the other’s. He didn’t have to do any kind of work, it was all given to him already. He parted his lips open, taking a deep breath in when he felt the strength and warmth of a hand grasping his ass.

The female moans died down so a deeper, realer one could rise against his collarbones.

"I am," he said, already breathless from griding his body against Baekhyun’s. Nothing unusual either. He was used to this kind of stamina, unfortunately. It didn’t take one bit away from the pleasure just whispering into his mind, low, faint, but definitely enough for him to get a feel of. "I am."

Baekhyun pulled away, smiled a silent laugh, eyes stuck on lips. "Come on then," he tempted the other, bringing both his hands down to hold onto his hips, holding them in place so he’d stop rubbing against Baekhyun and focus already. He was hard, they were hard. What wasn’t hard was pulling away just when their lips were about to meet and laughing heartily at the whine that the man complained with, a total mismatch to the maturity of his features, the deep smile lines around his mouth, and the uncared for aridness of his skin.

He leaned forward, closer to Baekhyun who leaned back, back, amusement claiming his lips before the man could. It was only when he grabbed the collar of Baekhyun’s shirt and pulled him forward that their lips crashed together, a bit too harsh, a bit too noisy with Baekhyun’s laugh stuffed into his own mouth. He felt dryness against his lips as the wall vibrated even more where he’d pressed his hand to catch himself when the man had pulled him forward all of a sudden.

The music was nothing but a strident whistle in his ears, the kiss was nothing but an intoxicating connection of two mouths. A mouth that pressed too hard against his, that tasted like an alcohol Baekhyun had never drank and probably wouldn’t ever drink, that kept rubbing and pushing and invading and moaning and then curled into bitterness against his lips. He opened his eyes and pushed the man away just in time to avoid him coughing into his face. He stepped back and observed as bloodshot eyes stared at him in stupor, as features tensed into asphyxiation, only broken when the man opened his mouth and let out a wheeze so small it didn’t even sound human anymore.

Silent coughs, silent accusations, silent panic, the noisy drag of a body sliding down the wall, the loud lump of a dying man crumbling on the ground. His body spasmed for a short moment, his fingers struggling to grab onto thedirt on the ground, his feet kicking about twice before it all came to a stop, the body hardening into a corpse.

Baekhyun stood still and watched for a moment, just in case. It always worked perfectly, but just in case. He adjusted his pants, twisting his mouth as he looked down at the visible boner through the leather of his pants. The fabric almost shined at him, calling for his attention, unsatisfied - just like he was. But he ignored it in favor of spitting on the ground. His mouth always felt uncomfortable after he kissed someone, as if his own saliva, his own teeth, his own tongue, and every single centimeter of his mouth could destroy him as well. It couldn’t. He didn’t know why, but it couldn’t.

He brought a hand up, wiping his mouth with the back of it, chancing a quick glance around him. There was no one. It was an empty alley just like any other empty alley at the back of any other night club. The only difference was that there was a corpse at his feet. He took an additional step back, blinked consecutively twice to wake his Rec’contacts up and snap a picture of the body. He brought his hand up, looking at the picture displayed on the screen of his P-watch. With a swipe of his finger on the small of the screen, he turned it off and took a last glance at the body, the tensed fingers and the discomfort on the spine.

Takashi Miyuma. 34. Writer for The Light, an extremist newspaper whose current agenda was to push the government to stop producing trees and produce more AI factories for more free labor instead. He supposed the E-cologists had put in a request for an assassination. Not surprising.

Turning his back to the body, he rolled his shoulders to stretch them and pulled the door open. Music pounded in his face, smoke curled around his arms and pulled him in inside.

Nothing better than an ice cold glass of Spritzy after a murder. The fruity bubbles bursting in his mouth would wash the taste of alcohol mixes away.

The AI standing at the door was a woman this time. Kangho had upgraded but downgraded all at once. Her face lacked life but had a plentiful smile, thick lips, the softness of a doll. Her ams were built with muscles bigger than her head. Her breasts were even bigger, bouncing exaggeratedly when she just raised her head to look at him instead of the floor.

Crude. This was just really crude. He’d obviously gotten her customized with the image of his crudest, most stupid and surrealist fantasy. Breasts didn’t just bounce around at the slightest move of the body. They were breasts, not water balloons. She was even holding a blaster in each hand. Baekhyun smiled.

She stood straight in front of him as he headed towards her amidst the laughter in the building, all of it morbid and twisted in sound and origin. He knew for a fact that while some people in this building were simply playing poker or virtual chess or even a sick version of scrabble, a lot of them were sexually torturing either holograms or living, breathing beings. Baekhyun hated this place.

What he hated even more was the dull melody hanging over the entire building. Useless. This was just very useless. And old. This was the only place that still played just plain music that could only be listened with ears. Nothing fun about that, that was only a remnant of the Old Age. He still continued smiling at the AI until she stepped aside, probably after studying his face in the data base hidden somewhere in her head. He realized she wasn’t holding any blasters, her hands _were_ the blasters and one of them folded back into a very human-looking hand with a quick mechanical sound. She opened the door for him and her breasts almost hit him in the face with the movement.

He tried very hard not to laugh nor let out a wail of despair that could’ve turned into a gloomy sigh as soon as he entered the room and Kangho looked up at him from behind a blurry layer of smoke. There was five more AIs in the room, the same exact replicas of the one standing at the door. He’d customized a whole batch. Baekhyun wondered who he’d had to bribe to actually customize them. He’d probably paid a lot. Only the wealthiest could do that, AI’s were usually built and, only then, sold to whoever had enough money to buy them.

"Come in, come in," Kangho said as Baekhyun was already closing the door. Useless. This man was truly useless. And dirty.

Baekhyun’s nose twitched when Kangho took a big bite of his burger, a bright yellow sauce dripping out of it, on his hands and on his shirt. It was an even uglier yellow than the sauce. This man was truly the only person in Noxis who couldn’t work out a yellow top. He didn’t know about the rest of the world or even the country, he’d never traveled out of the city.

An AI stepped towards Kangho to wipe around his mouth with her fingers that she then brought up to her mouth. Baekhyun made sure to keep eyes on her and not on Kangho as she started sucking on her fingers. Of course. He wasn’t even surprised. This man probably had occasional orgies with these six duplicate AIs.

For the first time in his life, Baekhyun refused to imagine a sexual moment.

"Did you get the job done?" Kangho asked, blinking at him with his gigantic eyes. Eyes rendered gigantic by lust. He kept glancing at the AI who stepped back from him to get back to her spot at the left of his very messy desk again. Messy with wrappings of various foods and snacks. It was a wonder he didn’t make his AIs clean his office.

Baekhyun watched him wipe his fingers on a tissue already dirtied by some amber stains.

"Obviously," he affirmed, looking over Kangho’s shoulder and out the glass wall behind him.

There was traffic, a lot of it. The same chrome cair decorated with unicorn stickers had been hovering a few meters away, stacked in-between an airbus and another classier cair. He could only focus on the unicorn cair and the long row of flying engines in the sky. Another thing he hated about this building was that it was tall enough for the chaos of the traffic to be seen out the window of Kangho’s office. It was faint but he could even hear the anger of the honks yelling at each other.

He looked back at Kangho when he sighed and summoned the AI on his right with a flick of his fingers. She immediately obeyed, all bouncing body parts and lifeless smiles.

"It’s been three years and I still gotta word out every single order to you, boy. You’re not a brat anymore, you’re over twenty," he nagged, grumbling and sighing every few words.

"I’m just twenty, actually," Baekhyun couldn’t help but correct him.

It had indeed been years since he’d started working for Kangho and yet, he couldn’t get used to his voice. It was just unpleasant. It sounded like he was breathing in while pronouncing each word, like his tongue swirled inside his mouth with each word, like he was constantly talking around a mouthful of cheese. His voice just sounded greasy, fat. Maybe it was because Kangho was just _that_ greasy and fat. His neck looked thicker than his AI’s waist.

He reached and pressed a finger against her right breast, just where he figured her nipple would be. Baekhyun frowned at her _giggle_ only to understand what was happening when immediately after the touch, her face froze even more and a screen descended from the hairline crowning her forehead.

"Show me," Kangho said, falling back against the backrest of his seat with an unattractive sound of comfort. He reached for his Vape just as Baekhyun reached for the small remote in his jacket’s pocket.

He pressed on a button and a menu appeared in his sightline. He connected his Rec’contacts to _Bouncy bouncy boobies._ That seemed like the right screen. It’d been years but he still wasn’t used to _this_ either.

Choosing to ignore the abomination of the situation, he went to his pictures folder and displayed the photo he’d taken earlier that night.

A puff of smoke rushed towards the screen and he scrunched his nose at the stench of fries. Out of all the flavors Kangho usually chose to vape, this was probably the worst.

"Great," he said, stretching his word out, stretching his arm out to press on the AI’s other breast. The screen made way for her frozen smile again and she stepped back. "Did you get rid of the body?"

Baekhyun tucked the remote in his pocket again. "Getting rid of corpses is not in my job description," he repeated what he’d told Kangho dozens of times before. Usually Kangho either got his men to get rid of the corpse or left it to be found by the police on its own. At other times, mostly on days he spent in a bad mood, he asked Baekhyun that same exact question. The answer was always the same.

The dissatisfaction it brought his boss was always the same too.

Baekhyun usually found it attractive when someone had their lips wrapped around any kind of object. This wasn’t the case now, as Kangho sucked on his Vape and glared at him at the same time for a long, quiet moment. He looked away just because he caught movement behind Kangho, the cairs finally moving. He watched the unicorns slowly float away until the engine was propelled away at the highest speed. Just like that, his distraction flew away.

"You don’t have a contract," he argued then, smoking his words out, and Baekhyun wondered if he’d taken so long to answer merely because he’d been thinking about a come back.

"Exactly," he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jackets out of habit. He’d been here for too long already, he wanted to get out. He didn’t feel at ease, not because he was scared, just because Baekhyun really didn’t like being in the proximity of unattractive people. It was _very_ difficult for him to find someone unattractive. Kangho wasn’t even old, Baekhyun didn’t know his age but he’d give him maybe thirty-five years. "I don’t have a contract to abide by so you got nothing to reproach me."

"We’ve been working together for four years now, Baekhyun," he said and that had no room in this argument, Baekhyun wasn’t even sure why he’d said that. Judging by the hiss in his voice, he supposed it was for lack of anything else to say. Behind him, flashes of colors fused by, left, right, up, down, crossways. Nothing crashed together. Not a single vehicle collided with another. It never did, always just came very close to it, but never actually did.

"Oh yeah," he replied, pulling his I-Bank out of his pocket and turning the small, rectangular device on by pressing his finger on the screen and waiting for it to approve his fingerprint. "I very clearly remember that mighty day four years ago, that fine morning where you just grabbed me and told me I was gonna kill people for you and you’d pay me."

The slam of Kangho’s vape on his desk was so loud it was a wonder it didn’t shatter right then and there. Baekhyun turned on the currency transfer mode and only then did he look up at Kangho’s seething teeth. His teeth always showed whenever he was angry, like an animal. A very hideous one. A cair grazed the glass wall, close enough for Baekhyun to actually hear the rush of air flying away in a blur of color. The building wasn’t even soundproof.

"I also remember giving you a house, a job, and enough mercy to spare you from choking on your own blood," he yelled, with an unnecessarily high volume to his voice. Baekhyun wasn’t angry, wasn’t upset. Kangho had, as usual, gotten upset on his own. He was starting to get annoyed. After four years of this, Baekhyun was starting to get sick of it. Kangho grabbed his vape and sucked on the device again. The stench of fried oil was unbearable. "I also remember you heartily accepting the money."

He had. Baekhyun had accepted the offer and the house and the money. He was starting to regret it now. All the benefits he was given weren’t enough to compensate being treated like a weapon, like a lapdog. Kangho had saved his life, he supposed. It was only a supposition. Maybe Baekhyun would’ve ended up having an even better life had Kangho not obligated him to work for him. Not that he had much to complain about. Just his boss. The rest was alright. Even his conscience was doing pretty good after hundreds of kills.

"I am stil heartily accepting the money even now," he said, stepping closer to the desk and reaching towards Kangho with his I-Bank. "Pay me."

Kangho looked down at the pad Baekhyun was holding, leaned forward, and spat on top of it. Baekhyun stared at the pad in disgust and looked up at Kangho when he snorted.

"What, you only need DNA with Instant Bank, don’t you?"

"Right," Baekhyun grinned through his teeth, reaching for the only immaculate tissue on the desk to thoroughly wipe his screen clean. This was getting more than just disgusting. He reached for a second tissue and Kangho was still grinning at him like a satisfied pig. Pigs didn’t even exist anymore. He was most probably the only pig on Earth. He threw the tissues on the mess already on the desk and checked the screen. He’d have to disinfect it. Five thousand I-coins. He looked up at Kangho with his most polite smile. "Thank you very much, have a nice evening."

With that, he turned around and headed out of the office, the AI outside opening the door for him before he even reached for the handle. He thanked her with the shell of a smile and got out without looking back at her. He heard the door close behind him and sighed as he headed towards the elevator. He pressed on the button, calling for it. It had twenty floors to climb. He stared at the red numbers counting up above the door.

He sighed again, shoulders dropping a little before he rolled them, adjusting his stance. This was okay. This was nothing unusual. Stupid Kangho and his disgusting existence and behavior and fantasies. Stupid enough to still use his DNA as the code for his bank accounts. Baekhyun should have kept a stained tissue with him and used that DNA to make an additional money transfer to his account, he should’ve milked him out of his whole money. This was okay.

The elevator opened with a ding and he stepped in, pressing on the button and leaning back against the wall as the doors closed again.

Baekhyun didn’t care. He was getting tired but it was okay. He didn’t like change, it would be too bothersome to do anything about this. He didn’t really care that much about this.

His watch lit up when he raised his hand up to take a look at the time. It was still pretty early. Barely over 1AM. Baekhyun looked down at himself, at the leather hugging his pelvis, his crotch. Perhaps he deserved a reward. But he wasn’t sure what form that reward should take.

The doors opened with that same dull bell sound and he stepped out, looking straight ahead of him as he walked towards the exit, making sure not to meet anyone’s eyes. This place was full of weirdos he probably couldn’t even imagine the kinks of. Because they weren’t really kinks. Just torture and weird entertainment likings.

As soon as he walked out of the building, a woman popped up in front of him, in a pleasant state of undress, her smile actually lively even if the colors of her form were washed out. Even this hologram looked better than Kangho’s new batch of AIs.

"Hello there, handsome," she purred, circling around him once and then standing in front of him again to swirl around once.

Baekhyun’s eyes glided down her body. Impressive. Only her nipples were covered by the tininess of her lingerie but there was no bouncing or jumping or squishing. He wondered if this nice body actually existed or if she was just a computer generated image especially made for this ad.

He didn’t reply to her, it was useless. It wasn’t a real person and while she’d hold a conversation with him, she’d keep repeating the same sentences from the script she was built with.

"You look lonely, honey," she said, her lower lip flowering into a pulpous pout as she stepped closer to him. Her breasts pressed against his chest. He didn’t feel it, couldn’t feel it, and he knew that if he looked down at them, they’d be cut by his chest. This was her purpose. Looking good enough for people to want to touch her, try, and then get frustrated when they couldn’t. "And in need of pleasure. Yes, you need pleasure. Just like me." She tilted her head up, closed her eyes, and let out a moan as she trailed her hands up her own form, cupping her breasts. She held onto them while looking at him, head tilted to the side, smile perfectly attractive. "Come to the Moany Moon on Ninth Avenue, and I’ll take care of both of us."

She let out a longer, more appetizing moan as her hand trailed down her body before disappearing like a switch had been turned off.

Baekhyun shoved his hands in his pockets, stepped forward. His footsteps were light now that his eyes had been washed clean. This was the sole reason why he had paid to block off every Holo-ads except for the sexual ones. It just made him happy.

And because he was happy and could get even happier, he chose to follow the signs. Because this was one. Baekhyun was destined to have sex tonight. It was written in the will of the universe. He looked up at the crowded sky, at the cairs flashing around like a wasp of electro-bees, except this was worse. Those artificial animals could be ignored, could be so tiny and unnoticeable while the sky was always crowded, always dark, always a threat hanging upon Baekhyun’s head. Like the cacophony of a rainless storm that whipped lightening around recklessly.

He hated this. One day the sky would fall on their head.

He checked the time on his watch and walked away from the building. The Love Shack was close enough to where he was, fortunately. That was exactly how Baekhyun had discovered it years ago. Back then, he’d still been very unfamiliar to the world he’d been living in for sixteen years. He could barely remember much from those years, every day had merged into each other, much too similar in content and completion.

He looked to his left, to his right, then crossed the street, careful not to bump into anyone. People were always extra rude in the crowd of the crosswalk, a single bump against someone’s shoulder would cost him an entire five minutes of arguing and Baekhyun had no time for that. He had to answer to the desires of his dick. He bit into his smile when he caught sight of a guy with an actual outfit made entirely of dicks. Dildos of every shape and color, every material and length. He eyed that one dildo with glitter inside the glass, swimming in a pinkish liquid. Another ad. He could tell by the blueish color of the man’s skin and the fact that Baekhyun was the only one to look at him. Most people had sexual ads blocked. Their life must be a little sadder than Baekhyun’s.

He stepped aside just in time to avoid a girl running past him, the neon green of her hand whipping around, followed by the screaming silver of another girl running right after her. Baekhyun walked a little further and waited to cross the street again, looking at the people whooshing past on their hover-boards or hover-cycles. He didn’t like those. He really didn’t like hovering in the air with no form of protection, even if it was just a mere few centimeters off the ground.

A cheery voice counted down the seconds left for the light to turn green for the pedestrians and Baekhyun looked up with a sigh, watching the silent news on the screen, the news anchor’s voice barely covering the traffic lights’ own voice as it recounted something about an accident on Seventh Avenue. He glided his gaze over the colorful, bright signs all over the buildings in his surroundings, a Vietnamese restaurant, a Japanese one, a hairdresser, an e-pets shop, too many signs, too many establishments stacked upon each other.

There were so many lights, so many ads, so much life in Noxis and yet, everything seemed to be washed out in purple light. He knew it was because of the protection layer built around the earth decades ago, to keep the sun from harming it. Or something. Baekhyun didn’t really pay attention whenever people talked about science. All he knew was that he disliked the omniscient dimension of darkness hanging over his head.

He focused on the smaller screen on a building on his left, right above the glass panes of a Flower Grower shop. An ad for the newest trend, a toothpaste that colored your teeth a certain color for the entire day. Baekhyun had yet to kiss someone with blue teeth. He couldn’t say that he was excited about it. Although, he supposed someone with blue teeth did deserve to die.

The voice coming off the traffic lights chirped a joyful _you may cross!_ and Baekhyun followed the movement of the crowd. He couldn’t follow the conversations happening all around. Someone was talking about their husband’s obsession with an AI, a man was arguing on the phone about the oncoming Ministerial Elections. What a joke. Everything was predetermined. A stream of curses walked past him followed by a stream of words amongst which he could only decipher _free trial_ and _customized friend_. An adbuddy.

Suddenly Baekhyun was thankful for Kangho’s actually pretty generous payments. He’d probably commit murder with his actual bare hands if he’d need to take on an Adbuddy in exchange for any kind of payment. The mere idea of having someone spill to him advertisement after advertisement for every kind of company without a break while he’d be eating his free burger was a dent to his good mood.

He quickened his footsteps and did his best not to get distracted by anything on the way to his destination. He truly had no time to lose. Even if no one was running after him, no boss, no adbuddy, no busy schedule. But the sky, the sky was so dark and over-occupied it felt like he was walking through a countdown without even hearing the numbers ticking down.

Once he could make out the corny pink letters that spelled a bright _LOVE SHACK_ , he smiled to himself and slowed down again. There was no rush now. The one thing Baekhyun liked to take his time with was sex, which included the path to sex. A hologram stood in front of the door, moving as soon as as he got close enough, stepping towards him and curling into a hug around him. It was a male today. Baekhyun couldn’t feel it but his body was pretty impressive. This one he knew didn’t actually exist anywhere, he was just a computer-generated image. A new one he’d never seen before. A very appealing one.

"It’s such a _pleasure_ to see you here," he said, pulling away from him with a smile. Baekhyun looked down and watched as his bulge quickly became more visible. This was actually funny, not arousing at all. He couldn’t believe some people saw an erection growing in the blink of an eye and got horny from it. This was kind of giving him second-hand embrassement but Baekhyun made it a point not to kink shame or judge anyone in this world. It was his highest principle. "It gives me such _euphoria_."

"Does it, now?" he asked, just to humor the hologram.

The pretty boy fluttered his lashes at him and nodded with a hum and a wide grin. Baekhyun had no idea what age was given to him and when it came down to it, it didn’t really matter. He just looked young, attractive, and very frail.

"Why don’t you come inside?" the boy said, finishing his offer with a suggestive hum and winking at Baekhyun.

Baekhyun rushed towards the door, just to prevent himself from bursting into laughter right then and there and risk offending the owner of the brothel. She could be very scary.

"Why don’t you come inside?" he heard again before he could open the door but this time, it wasn’t a male voice.

He pulled his hand away from the door handle and turned around just in time to see the wince on a young man’s face, a few steps away from him.

"You don’t have to phrase it like that," he muttered loud enough for Baekhyun to hear the embarrassment in his voice. Although, he could’ve made out the embarrassment even without hearing him, it was pretty much visible on his face.

"Oh, have I been a bad girl then?" the holo-ad retorted, obviously not noticing the man’s state. She swirled around when the man came to a stop when he noticed Baekhyun. The hologram bent over a little bit, Baekhyun could now see her profile as she looked at the man behind her over her shoulder. Her pixie cut suited her very well, her neck was slender and pale despite the blueish tint of her whole skin. "Maybe I deserve a punishment. Don’t you want to come in and treat me like the naughty girl that I am?" She shook her behind just a little bit to highlight her words.

"Oh, come on," the man huffed, quickly glancing at Baekhyun who couldn’t help but laugh at the scrunching of his features as he took a step back.

Baekhyun stepped away from the door and closer to him. His day was getting better and better.

"The holo-ad lured you in and isn’t leaving you alone?" he asked even if at this point, it was obvious that this man hadn’t found his way to the Love Shack on his own.

The man looked at him. Baekhyun looked at the vidid redness of his big ears, the curls of his hair, and the width of his eyes before they narrowed in a frown and he looked down at his P-watch, fingers tapping in rushed movements on the screen. Baekhyun could almost hear the sound his finger pads made against the screen. It was a flustered kind of cuteness.

The man dropped his hand once he was done and instantly, the hologram straightened up and walked away from him, going back to its eternal duty of roaming the streets in search for new clients.

The man let out a long sigh that made his shoulders drop. They were broad, he wondered if they were rendered broader by how large the hoodie he was wearing looked on him. Clothes could be illusions. But he’d looked much bigger than the holo-ad, the breadth of his body matching to the frailness of hers. It had looked pretty appealing. Maybe not an illusion then.

"Yeah, I guess I accidentally turned the ad-block off for sexual advertisements," he said, looking a little sheepish, a little out of place. His arms hung down his body a bit too unnaturally, he didn’t look comfortable and his smile still had that embarrassed smallness to it. "She dragged me here," he completed, gesturing behind Baekhyun.

He took a quick glance behind him, at the cheesy _LOVE SHACK_ sign and at the hologram guarding the door, frozen in a smirk. Irene had probably seen him about to open the door and had turned him off, otherwise there was no way it would just stand there without bugging them to come in.

He looked at the man again. He seemed to be confused as he stared at the immobile hologram. He couldn’t make it more obvious that this was his first time here. He couldn’t make it more fun.

"It’s difficult for holograms to drag you anywhere when they can’t actually touch you," Baekhyun noted, closely watching the guy’s features loosen into surprised rounds, eyes and mouth. "And you’re so tall too," Baekhyun added just because he liked tall people. Or liked how small tall people made him feel.

"I mean," the man started, gesturing in front of him with a wave of his hand. He fell silent for a short moment then dropped his hand. "I wasn’t dragged _dragged."_ Another hand gesture, cut in two between the repetition. He dropped his hand again and laughed a huffy sound. "Fine, maybe I was curious and willingly followed her here."

"So you’ve never been to a brothel before?" Baekhyun asked, just to make sure. He was aware that while they were pretty popular, not everyone frequented brothels still. A big mistake, a huge miss, if you were to ask him.

He shook his head. Baekhyun then realized that they were talking a bit too loudly and that they were standing a bit too far from each other. The man stepped closer before he could.

"If I’m craving sex, I just go to a night club." He could say that word easily with no difficulties or lowering in tone. Not _that_ shy then. "It usually works just fine for me."

Right, you could actually have sex after a night spent in a club. It didn’t necessarily have to end in murder for normal people.

"It’s easier here, I find," Baekhyun said, gesturing to the Love Shack with a nod of his head to the side. The man followed the movement to look behind him. "There is no attachment and no disappointment either. It’s only professionals who know how to do their job and are really good at it."

"You seem to be an expert," the man hummed and when he guided his gaze back to Baekhyun, his expression turned sheepish again. "Sorry, that maybe sounded a little mean or judgmental. It wasn’t supposed to."

"Oh, no," Baekhyun laughed, shaking his head. "I am actually kind of an expert. So if you want advice or recommendations, I’m the right person," he stated, pointing at himself with a thumb, not even bragging. He really was kind of an expert in this domain.

"Thanks then," the man laughed. It was an attractive sound, an attractive sight too. A sound rich in depth, a sight ornate with a dimple on his cheek. He pressed his lips together then. "Not today, though. Maybe another time."

Baekhyun nodded in understanding. "No need to rush," he reassured the other. "But if you feel ready, do make sure to come here. The Love Shack is really the best brothel in Noxis."

He knew it for a fact. He’d tried almost every single brothel in the city. That reminded him that a new one had opened last week only a few blocks from here, he ought to pay it a visit tomorrow.

"And you’re the best promoter of the city," the man smiled, a crooked curl that formed as he was speaking. He stepped back. "Have a nice evening then."

"You too," Baekhyun returned it, watching the man turn around and walk away.

His legs were so long. He walked steadily, his back just a little hunched but his head not tilted down. The sleeves of his hoodie devoured his hands, only leaving the tip of his fingers free. It was a wonder how someone could look so big yet so small at the same time.

He turned around and walked to the door, pushing it open and smiling at Tiffany who was, as always, behind the counter.

His day had gotten considerably better, now all he needed was his dick to get a little bit of happiness too.

Baekhyun hid behind the first boulder he could find and took a few seconds to change his ammunition, fingers quick and efficient, careful not to get stuck in the mechanical teeth scattered all over the gun. It took longer than it should. He was weak. He could feel his body vibrating with pain, could feel that he didn’t have much longer left. He should do this while he still could. He’d come this far, he wouldn’t fail this.

He looked to his left. He only had two men left. Two out of a whole army. But his enemy had lost his entire army and was standing on his own on the battle front. He caught the gaze of his soldier, or thought he did. He couldn’t see actual eyes beyond the tinted glass of his mask. He blinked, patting his whole body for anything to take the exhaustion away, pills, potions, herbs, anything. There was nothing.

A loud explosion ripped through the air and Baekhyun fell back, ears whistling and fingers throbbing with pain as the ground vibrated much too strongly. His fingers were already wounded, a line of blood cut through his palm and when he felt something pressing into it, he raised his hand off the ground. He didn’t need more damage brought on by a tiny rock entering his body and infecting his wound. He hated this exoplanet. He hated how there was nothing but dust, sand, and rocks all around. An entire field of rocks fed with freshly dead men, corpses, limbs, heads scattered all over the place, red from the blood and copper from the ground.

He took a deep breath in and straightened up, hiding as much as he could behind the rock but still peeking his head up just to take a glance at what had just happened.

He couldn’t see much, the sickly green of the sky covered everything in a shade of darkness and the explosion had raised dust off the ground, blurring everything out even more. He bit his tongue to keep himself from coughing, blinking rapidly to get rid of the sting and the tears in his eyes. He could make out a body on the ground, one that hadn’t been there before, stacked right on top of another body, its arms and legs missing. Another body, this one standing tall and proud, turning towards him.

Lowering himself to hide properly again, he cursed. He only had one man left. He gathered himself, looked down at his Biter, and then looked at his soldier. Above him, the sky crackled and sizzled with unsent thunder. Always there, hovering, never exploding, warning. He gestured at his soldier with a sharp movement of his hand towards the enemy. The solider nodded. This was their last chance.

Silently, the masked solider jumped up and and left his hiding spot, running to his left, away from Baekhyun and away from the enemy who immediately noticed it and started shooting towards him. Baekhyun jumped up amidst the distraction, aimed, felt his last soldier fall, felt the additional damage it caused his body, and shot.

With a roar, his gun activated and a monstrous mouth was projected out of the barrel, shooting through the air. His enemy turned towards him and started shooting but before anything could reach Baekhyun’s body, sharp, rotten teeth latched onto his head. Baekhyun stopped pressing on the trigger and the mouth was pulled right back to him, blood squirting into the air when it ripped the head out of his enemy’s body.

Thunder growled an empty threat as the head fell at Baekhyun’s feet. He could barely look at it before words exploded in his sightline, a big _PLANET CONQUERED_ flashing in proud golden colors.

Baekhyun logged off, took his headset off, squeezed his eyes closed and then opened them, blinking them a few times as his brain sent dizziness through his entire body, the adjustment from Virtual Reality to actual reality still a little uncomfortable after so many years.

He punched the air in victory, putting his headset down on his desk and then raising both arms into the air, arching his back and extending his legs under the desk to stretch his entire body out. His body relaxed with a sigh and he looked around him, glad to see the sober whites and browns of his living room rather than the coper and dust of that tasteless planet. Now that he’d conquered it, Baekhyun would build it up to a beautiful place. He’d just have to find a concept for it first. It was difficult to find a nice enough but different concept after fourteen planets conquered but he’d do it.

Leaning forward, he grabbed his computer mouse and shut off the game, logging everything off, watching the screen darken until all that was written on it was _Nebula_ and then that too disintegrated into dust.

He pushed his chair away from the desk and got up, stretching his body a little more. The bad thing about VR games was the immobile aspect of it, he was using only his brain, his body stayed stuck in the same position for hours on end sometimes. But that didn’t make Nebula bad at all, on the contrary, Baekhyun loved not having to move a single finger to have fun.

Walking to the couch, he reached for the remote as the lights sensed his approach and turned on. He turned the television on, stared at the actor holding a phone conversation while driving, switched to a music video displaying two AIs rubbing against each other behind the singer, switched to another boring series, switched to a commercial for taste-shifting candy, switched to the news channel.

_"We’ve reached a new peak in crime rates, people_ ," a man was saying, hands rigidly holding onto the desk he was delivering his speech from behind. Baekhyun dropped the remote on the couch and headed for the kitchen. " _But fear not, the Ministry of Scientific Progress and all its researchers, scientists, and employees are doing their best to make life more progressive and easier for all of you._ "

The fridge opened on its own when Baekhyun stepped to it and he stood there, looking at its content, wondering what he should eat. He wasn’t that hungry, he’d eaten dinner right before playing, French takeout that he’d grabbed on his way back from that new brothel he’d tried today. It had been okay. Eating that _cordon bleu_ felt better than that inexperienced boy he’d chosen.

_"We’ve already some so far, as a kind. Most of you have Progressive-Watches, use Instant-Bank, use Rec’contacts, own cairs."_

That was false. Owning a cair was a sign of wealthiness and economical ease. Barely half of Noxis’ population owned a cair. And yet, the sky was overcrowded.

He grabbed a yoghurt, stepped aside and opened his cupboard as the fridge closed.

_"We’ve come up with ways to instantly heal illnesses, we’ve come up_ with _ways to treat cancer that no one could even conjure centuries ago. But there’s only one illness we’ve been struggling with so hard for the past decade. Crime."_

Baekhyun hummed. Apple, berries, chocolate fudge. What flavor should his protein bar be today?

_"But I, I hereby promise you that I will personally make sure to heal our country from this noxious sickness. And soon, my dear people, soon we’ll be successful."_

He grabbed the strawberry flavored one, grabbed a spoon from the drawer, and returned to the living room, the lights switching off after him.

_"How am I so sure, you ask? It’s because we are going to be helped. The human kind is not left alone in this universe. Above us-"_

He switched to a porn channel, scrunched his nose at the scripted scene before his eyes, and switched to another channel. When he was shown two women kissing, undressed, taking their time and not moaning exaggeratedly, Baekhyun was once again happy to have paid for this Homemade Porn package.

He dropped on the couch, watching the screen as he started eating his yogurt. One of the women had long blonde hair and it looked pretty, made her waist, where it reached, seem daintier when the camera zoomed into her body, cutting off her face and focusing on where the second woman was taking off her bra and kissing her breasts.

There was nothing really arousing about this, that wasn’t Baekhyun’s purpose in watching it. It just made him happy, he just enjoyed the sight of people pleasuring each other.

That pleasure was broken when his P-watch vibrated. With a sigh, he touched the device and projected the screen in front of him, much bigger and comfortable to read. He scrunched his face at the notification of an Instant Message from Kangho.

**_Kangho_ **

_[I’m gonna send a guy to your house and you’re gonna kill him]_ **10:36PM**

He groaned, throwing his head back against the couch and sighing again before straightening andpulling the keyboard into the projection to type his answer.

[What about the body?] **10:37**

_[Learn how to get rid of them]_ **10:37**

_[And don’t forget to record it]_ **10:38**

So this was why. Kangho had never sent anyone to his house before. This was a sanction for yesterday’s argument.

This was dangerous. This was ridiculous. This could put him in great danger, could lead the police to him. He didn’t want to do this, he really didn’t. He just wanted to eat his yogurt and watch porn.

But it was okay. Doing this would be easier than arguing with Kangho about it. He was too lazy to do that. This was just a small inconvenience and it could be worse, he supposed.

He let the television on, listening to the two women’s moans while getting ready for his guest. Maybe being welcomed by porn would put his guest in the mood more quickly.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time he went to the Love Shack, it was a female hologram at the door but the same tall and small man looking just as embarrassed. He was already inside the establishment this time but he still looked at Baekhyun with that open-mouthed smile, an imperfect blend between surprise and embarrassment that was quite pleasant to the eye. Just like his round eyes and raised eyebrows were.

"You’re just in time, Baekhyun," Tiffany greeted him, with her most attractive smile. All her smiles were very attractive and very kind. She was pretty good at hiding the fact that she could probably ruin a married man’s entire life with just a few seconds taken from her CCTV cameras. Baekhyun had seen it happen once. He wasn’t married but he’d still been extra careful around her since then. "The catalogue is already open, ready for you to choose from. You can even help each other, this beautiful man here is very indecisive," she said, directing her grin to the stranger.

Although, Baekhyun wasn’t sure he should refer to him as a stranger. Frequenting the same brothel already put them in a very tight line of proximity.

But the man hummed and looked at Tiffany for a silent moment. Baekhyun slowly stepped closer to them, studying the man, crossing his hands behind his back, and trying not to let appear the fact that this was still as amusing as it had been a few days ago.

Sex and anything that had to do with it was such a fully integrated part of society nowadays, it was rare for him to meet anyone who felt so timid about it. It was hard to still be a prude when everyone had at least one free porn channel that kept running 24/7 on television, when AIs were openly sold as toys, when there was at least one sex shop every few blocks. Baekhyun was fully aware that some people brought their child to brothels as a coming of age or birthday gift once they were major and he thought it was a nice gift. Better learn in a professional, safe environment than at the back alleys of clubs, right after vomiting half of the alcohol ingurgitated through the night.

So this was precious. A very precious sight that Baekhyun enjoyed.

"What’s wrong?" Tiffany asked, tilting her head and furrowing her eyebrows. it was just afaint tug on her forehead but baekhyun knew she didn’t like to waste time and a customer who came all the way inside only to leave without seeking any service was a huge waste of her time. "Are you changing your mind?"

"I just haven’t made up my mind yet," the man said and Tiffany’s eyes instantly narrowed.

"We’ll just look through the catalogue together, Tiffany, it’s alright," Baekhyun said, stepping forward to stand next to him.

He folded his arms on the counter and took a look at the catalogue. It was the male section. He looked up at the stranger whose gaze peeked at him once before hiding back down on Minghao’s face. It was a pretty face. Baekhyun was very well acquainted with it. And Minghao was a very good choice too, his body was not only flexible but very soft to the touch. He’d look amazing underneath the stranger’s bulkier body.

"Alright then," Tiffany said, putting her smile back on. "I’ll leave you to it. Ring the bell when you’re ready."

With that, she swirled around and Baekhyun knew in the way her hair whipped around that she was irritated. It didn’t take much to irritate Tiffany Hwang.

The man sighed then, a loud sound that puffed his cheeks up a little. His cheeks looked just as cute fluffed up as they did dimpled.

"Hey, it’s alright," Baekhyun said, pushing his elbow against the other’s. He wasn’t sure he’d be confortable with Baekhyun touching him yet but Baekhyun still preferred using touch over anything else. It was always easier, clearer. "At least you’re actually inside this time. That’s progress."

He snorted, turning to look at Baekhyun who had to tilt his head up to properly look at him. He liked it. This was comfortable, enjoyable. Hot.

"Right. I’ll get used to the environment little by little, I guess," he said, looking back down at the catalogue again but still not touching the screen to switch through the different options.

Baekhyun pressed his lips together, studying his profile. His hair was still just as curly as last time, his nose looked even more handsome from this angle. He had a mole on it. Baekhyun would have to stretch his arm a little to touch it. He wasn’t sure whether the stranger would laugh or frown if he did it. He was shy but not too shy, he was broad but felt small, he wasn’t passive but not that assertive either. Baekhyun didn’t dislike these contradictions.

He looked down at the other’s finger when it started tapping steadily on the counter’s surface, a centimeter shy of the screen.

"But why do you insist on coming here if it stresses you out so much?" he couldn’t help but ask. The first time could’ve been out of curiosity and the influence of a holo-ad but this time, he seemed to have come here willingly and more decisively.

He switched off the catalogue before turning to face Baekhyun properly. "It’s just that," he hummed, looking over Baekhyun’s shoulder for a moment before finding his face again. The shyness seemed to be gone. He was really hard to figure out. "I think it would be easier for me to come here. I don’t really have time to go to clubs often anymore and when I go, I guess I’m a little too picky. I have to actually get to know the person before even kissing them. So if I come here instead and see this whole thing as some kind of masturbation session, it would be much easier."

Baekhyun hummed. Interesting. He didn’t stutter or mumble the words _sex_ or _masturbation,_ didn’t even look away from Baekhyun while pronouncing them. He would’ve expected otherwise, if he were honest.

"What’s your preferred way of masturbating then, usually?"

The man’s eyebrows shot up at once, his eyes widening and his mouth opening but he never started his sentence.

Baekhyun laughed a little. "Sorry, was that too direct?" he wondered out loud. There was just so many ways to masturbate, hundreds of different toys, VR, AIs. He was just curious about it. The way a person masturbated defined them very well, Baekhyun was sure about that.

Or maybe Baekhyun should go out and have a conversation with more people to learn how to act in a society. Or maybe not. This man had the cutest reactions ever. Cute and hot. He seemed to always be both extremities of a domain. Tall and small. Cute and hot. Maybe this man had it all. He didn’t make Baekhyun as happy as a toy _plus_ lube package deal did but the amount of curiosity he planted in him came pretty close.

"I mean it’s not really a taboo topic, it’s pretty normal but…" he left his sentence hanging, lips still parted but unable to find the right word to tie his thought into a close.

"You’re shy," Baekhyun completed it for him.

"Maybe a little," he mumbled, looking down at the pad on the counter. His lips puckered around his words prettily. They would probably pucker into a kiss even more prettily. He pushed the pad away a little and distanced himself from the counter, straightening his posture and rendering Baekhyun even shorter than him. "This was enough for today. Maybe next time I’ll go further."

That was such a shame. This man’s shyness prevented his dick from being happy.

"I think it would be easier for you if you didn’t come here alone," Baekhyun said, deciding to list all of his solutions to this problem. No dick would remain unhappy for long, not under his watch. "A lot of people come here in groups."

"In groups?" he repeated, frowning his features into an expression of denser handsomeness.

Baekhyun waved a hand in front of him when he realized what that had sounded like. "No, I mean they come here together and then part their ways, each attending to their own business here."

"Oh." He stretched that sound into a tiny laugh. "I don’t think I’d be comfortable with people knowing I come here."

"We could come together then," Baekhyun said and suddenly, he felt like one of those very crude holo-ads but that wasn’t what he was suggesting. He genuinely wanted this attractive man to find the pleasure he was seeking.

He’d never offered such a thing to anyone. Baekhyun didn’t even hold conversations that were this long with many people. But there was just something endearing about this man, something interesting too. And knowing that people had a good sex-life just made Baekhyun happy in general.

But the man said nothing, looking at him and humming, obviously not in thoughts but as a way to fill the very awkward silence that could settle between them at this moment. Baekhyun smiled at him and raised his arm, hand tapping on his P-watch to project the screen between them.

"This is my name and CN," he said as he opened up his profile, where a picture of him, his name, home address, and citizen number were all displayed. He looked at the stranger through the projection, watched him carefully read it. "You don’t have to but if you ever want to reach me so we can come here together, I’ll be glad to accompany you. I’m not asking for your CN back so don’t feel obligated to contact me. Just reach for me if you want to, whenever."

Silently, the man raised his arm towards him and tapped on his own P-watch. Baekhyun preferred looking at his face rather than at his screen but he was pretty sure he was adding him to his contacts.

"Thanks," he said, looking at him again through the projection. Baekhyun faded it away. "That’s very considerate of you. I’ll think about it."

"No problem," he smiled, genuinely hoping that he wasn’t being weird.

This wasn’t weird to him but Baekhyun had been given a fair number of weirded out looks throughout his entire life for things that seemed normal to him.

He probably wasn’t being weird though. If someone asked him to go together to a brothel, Baekhyun would personally be very happy. It was a really nice, friendly move. Brothel friendship dates would be great. Though, Baekhyun wouldn’t reduce his intentions towards this man to just kindness and friendship. Maybe as a last resort Baekhyun could personally volunteer to make sure his dick was happy.

But for now, he just pulled the pad closer to him, switching the catalogue on and the man seemed to take it as his cue to leave. He bid Baekhyun goodbye and with a last crooked smile, he left. Baekhyun pressed on the old-fashioned bell to ring for Tiffany who showed up in the blink of an eye. Her face turned sour when she found Baekhyun alone but a smile quickly flowered when Baekhyun complimented her hairdo. Just because he was in a kind mood, he chose to go with Irene today, the Love Shack’s most expensive worker.

She was already waiting for him at the door when he headed there after Tiffany gave him the room number. Her features were just as clear as always, her lips just as cherry-colored and appetizing as ever. Today, her gown was a pretty pearlescent pink, barely held together by a ribbon delicately tied into a flowery shape at the side of her waist, deep cuts in the fabric diving down almost to her navel, offering a good part of her fair breasts to Baekhyun’s gaze as he closed the door behind him.

"It’s been a while," she greeted Baekhyun with once he was close enough to her. She moved, the fabric of the gown parting to let one of her legs shine smoothness into his eyes. "Did you miss me?"

He hadn’t really. She was nice, he enjoyed her as a person and she was one of the few people in Noxis that sexually fitted him the best but he hadn’t particularly craved her presence in the weeks that he hadn’t seen her.

"Did you?" he threw back, reaching to graze his fingers down her waist and hold onto her hip.

Her hands touched his arms, slid up, pulled him closer until she could wrap her arms around his neck.

"Maybe I should show you," she whispered, her lips grazing his jaw with each word. Even with heels on, she was shorter than him. It was nice.

He stepped forward and she followed the movement, stepping back. Then, he felt a vibration against his wrist and looked down at his P-watch. An Instant Message from a name he didn’t know. Park Chanyeol. Irene kissed a shiver into his neck and Baekhyun reached around her to tap on his screen.

**[Park Chanyeol]**

_[My hand.]_

He tapped on the name to open up the profile of the sender. It was him. Tall but small. His hair was straight on his picture but the face was the same.

Irene’s lips moved to the other side of his neck, her fingers ascending warmth along his thigh.

_[What?]_

"You’re distracted," he heard her say, looking away from his screen and at her face instead.

She didn’t look irritated, she had no right to be. It was just a statement.

"Just a little," he confessed, raising his hand to tap on the tip of her chin with a playful finger. "That must mean you’re not doing enough."

She laughed, tugging his lips into a smile of their own. She looked very cute when she smiled, very seductive when she didn’t. Baekhyun had no preference. His watch vibrated.

_[You asked me what’s my preferred way of wanking.]_

_[It’s using my hand.]_

Baekhyun parted his lips when Irene’s hand cupped his crotch, her palm gentle yet firm as she started massaging the area. Baekhyun hadn’t expected this. He seemed less timid through IM’s. Chanyeol.

He quickly typed a reply on the keyboard that automatically expanded and projected right in the air, right above the screen.

[Thats very old fashiond]

He dropped his hand and let it fulfill its craving by sliding his fingers underneath the fabric of Irene’s gown, pushing it away to properly cup her breast. Her breath hitched, her hand stuttering against his hardening cock. It felt nice, very nice still. So nice Baekhyun smiled as he leaned to kiss the area right under her ear.

_[But very efficient.]_ **_3:10PM_ **

[Cute] **3:11PM**

He let Irene undo his jeans’ and then picked her up, careful not to untie her gown. He wanted it to stay on her, prettily, as he made the both of them happy with pleasure.

The door closed behind Baekhyun with a perky melody to signal its locking. He took his jacket off, blinked at the lights turning on as he advanced into his home, threw the jacket inside his bedroom while he passed by it, and headed to the bathroom.

He took a look into the mirror and scrunched his nose, bringing his hand up to wipe at the lipstick stain on his mouth. Kissing lipstick wasn’t pleasant at all. He glanced over his shoulder when he heard a whistle from the living room, his P-watch vibrating at the same time.

Rapidly, he took his Rec’Contacts off, washed his face and took his shirt off, heading back towards his bedroom where he threw on a larger shirt and sweatpants. He grabbed a shirt that was on the floor, messily folded it, and shoved it back into his dresser before walking out of the bedroom.

Once he reached the living, he dropped on his seat and rolled closer to his desk, waking up his computer by moving the mouse around a little. Nebula’s home screen scintillated at him with the stars Baekhyun had never seen above his head and he smiled, logging in and then rapidly opening up his Home Log where a message awaited him.

**[startrack]**

_[hey]_

_[what’s up]_

[hey]

[it’s been a while]

[thought you left the game cuz I was better than you]

He smiled, staring at the name he hadn’t seen in a while. Playing Nebula was even better when you actually had people to play it with and while Baekhyun had a wide register of friends in the game, nothing beat this particular guy. He didn’t know his name but they’d already established the fact that they were both men the moment Baekhyun had started talking about masturbation, months ago now.

Pushing himself away from the desk, he got up and went to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. His watch vibrated and he looked at the notification as he walked back to the living room.

_[you’re only better bc you’re a whiny baby when you lose]_

_[so I let you win each time out of the kindness of my heart]_

He plopped down on his chair with a snort, opened the bottle and drank before replying.

[or you’re just a sore loser]

[where were you anyway?]

[you missed the special event two days ago]

[you could’ve dealt drugs on your planets for a whole day and turned rich]

_[I was getting a few things done for work]_

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. He’d never asked him about what he worked as. He didn’t really care that much, they were only game buddies and truthfully, he wouldn’t even get an answer if he asked. He hadn’t even gotten an answer about Startrack’s favorite way of wanking when he’d asked.

_[I got more handsome while I was away tho, if you were wondering]_

[that I can’t be sure about]

He looked down at his P-watch, unlocking it, tapping on the screen to send Kangho the picture he’d snapped of tonight’s kill. A beautiful woman. He wondered why she’d been requested. She didn’t even have an important, out of the norm kind of job either. Maybe it was just someone from her personal life who’d wanted to get rid of her. Family could be very toxic. That included friends.

He sent the picture without joining any caption to it. He was still pissed at Kangho for the guy he’d sent to his home. Baekhyun had to actually carry the body out of his home and give it to some of Kangho’s men for them to actually get rid of it. It had been a very unpleasant experience and he had no desire to see that man’s face again in a long while. Instead, he made sure that the picture was sent and gave his attention back to his computer screen.

_[maybe one day you’ll be able to see for yourself]_

[oh do you love me so much that you’re going to fly here?]

Startrack didn’t live in Noxis, he even despised the capital of Systia. Baekhyun couldn’t recall where he lived exactly but they were in the same country for sure, at least. Just very far from each other.

_[bleh]_

_[You’d be the one to come here I’m not going to visit you I don’t need to]_

_[I already know what you look like mate]_

Baekhyun snorted again, grabbing his water to take another sip. He was a little hungry. He should order some food later.

[really now?]

[tell me then lol]

_[people with handsome Nebula characters are always really ugly irl]_

_[they’re trying to make up for their real face just like you poor bub]_

[this will cost you a humiliating loss]

When they played later, Baekhyun indeed humiliated Startrack for two out of three games. He really needed to work on his game reflexes. It was particularly pleasing to kill him each time he revived himself. Baekhyun could probably easily conquer one of his planets but he didn’t, out of friendship etiquette.

There was just too many toys in this world. Too many toys that seemed appealing. Baekhyun was really glad he had no one to support in life, no one to give money to. He could spend it all for himself instead.

He zoomed out of the dildo display behind the glass pane to focus on the reflection of a little girl dragging her mother forward by the hand. He heard the woman laugh. The little girl was listing out names, claiming that she’d played with all these people during the day. Baekhyun looked down at his P-watch. It was the end of the afternoon. She was telling her mother about her day at school.

Baekhyun shoved his hands into his jackets’ pockets and focused back on the dildo expanding and enlarging behind the glass. He didn’t have anyone to tell his day to. He didn’t need to have anyone. He only needed to add a new toy to his collection. He stood there until he couldn’t hear the little girl chirping about her day at school and only then did he step aside, towards the doors that opened for him.

As soon as he was surrounded by dozens of toys, Baekhyun felt in his element again. All these possible ways to get pleasure. He looked around, kindly declining the seller who asked if he needed help. This was the last place Baekhyun would ever need guidance in. He walked around the store, looking at each screen that displayed solo porn of men and women alike using most of these, a few screens showcasing very commercial porn of couples using them together along with commentary on how that one amplifying potion made them fall in love with each other and each other’s body even more.

He looked through the shelves, observed all the unusual shapes, the glittery dildos, he raised his eyebrows in questioning at the the butt plugs that could hold onto anything in its outer extremity. Odd. He grabbed a bottle-shaped dildo and watched in amazement as it dissolved into a very thick, wine-colored liquid. The seller snapped his fingers behind him and Baekhyun glanced at him over his shoulder before feeling his hands warming up. When he looked at them again, every single drop of that lube was vibrating on his hands and some of it landed on the floor before it all jumped up, gathered together with a strange noise. It only took a few seconds for it to solidify into that bottle shape again. Interesting. Impressive. But very unsanitary, he supposed. He put the toy back in its place. His hands were left dry, hopefully clean.

Rapidly, he skimmed through the aisle full of leather and collars, walking, observing, pressing the button on a small, red ball. It opened and when he stepped back, light jumped out of it. A hologram, entirely naked and already moaning. He pushed his hand through the image to press on the ball again and it was sucked right back in. This was an old toy, nothing impressive or new, he just found it fascinating, the way the hologram could just jump out of the ball instead of being projected from it.

It was fun. He liked it. There was just so many ways to find pleasure. So many ways to be pleasured and yet, Chanyeol had probably not tried a grand majority of these ways. He pursed his lips as he looked at a Handie, a pretty realistic reproduction of a hand cut off at the wrist that gave one of the best hand jobs ever and that you could regulate on your own. He had one of these at home. He wondered if Chanyeol had used that before. Maybe that was what he meant by _using my hand._ Probably not. Or else he wouldn’t have detailed it as _his_ hand.

Baekhyun wondered how often he masturbated. Was it every night? Once a week? Several times a week? Did he do it at night or whenever he felt like it, whether it be in the middle of the afternoon or way after midnight?

He looked at the device right next to the Handie, a hand regulator. He used to have one of these before, a glove that you could wear while jacking off, it would adjust the grip around yourself on its own along with the pressure, it could feel silky, warm, cold, or even vibrate depending on what mode you’d use. He’d used it so much that it was worn out and he’dhad to throw it. Maybe Chanyeol would like this.

Maybe Baekhyun should buy it for himself. He really had good memories of it. But he also had too many sex toys already. He was only supposed to look around because he was bored and because he liked to update himself on whatever new toys were out in the market. He wasn’t supposed to think about anything but his own pleasure in here, he wasn’t supposed to think about a shy and simultaneously assertive man’s ways of masturbating. Very poor ways of masturbating. He was being weird even in his own very loose standards.

He grabbed a pack of that hand regulator and checked out of the store, sighing happily once he stepped out. He would use this very well.

Holding onto the opaque black bag, Baekhyun headed to the nearest DownBus stop. He really didn’t like traveling in a crowd and occasionally getting squished but he was too lazy to walk all the way back home. The streets were always just as crowded anyway and if he had to walk behind the man in front of him the entire way home, he’d probably commit murder tonight. Why did people always walk so slowly without a care for the person behind them, looking up around them stupidly as they ambled the streets as if they had all the time in the world. Baekhyun quickened his steps with the intention of passing by the guy to walk at his own, much faster pace but before he could, the man just stopped abruptly, forcing Baekhyun to do the same since there were people rushing past him already. Too crowded. This city was way too crowded.

The man suddenly jumped, hovered in the air for a short moment, before elevating even more, rising until Baekhyun’s eyes were leveled to his feet. FlyShoes. Of course, only people with FlyShoes on walked this slowly, looking up at the sky for the perfect spot for their shoes to project them up into the air. Hopefully this asshole would get hit by cair.

With nothing slowing him down now, Baekhyun quickly started walking again, ignoring the noise of shoes clacking all around him, of people talking, laughing, and hooting at a fight happening somewhere on his right. He didn’t look, instead he took a turn to the left, shoving his very annoyed body into a narrow alley to directly cut to the DownBus stop. The noise was still just as bothersome between these steel walls but at least, he could run here, if he wanted to. But he didn’t, because someone was walking towards him from the opposite side.

Baekhyun shoved his hands in his pockets and side stepped so they wouldn’t bump into each other in the narrowness of the passage. The bag held around his first bumped against his thigh with each step, bumped against the wall on his right when the man’s shoulder crashed with his. He turned around, frowning, only ceasing his walk when he noticed that the man was standing there, immobile, back turned to him. That was a bad sign. That didn’t look like just a bad mood. Baekhyun shook his head and prevented himself from saying anything. He didn’t have time for this. He looked ahead of himself again and continued walking.

He heard footsteps, felt something crashing against him hard enough for him to stumble forward and drop the bag while catching himself with a hand on the wall. Before he could straighten himself properly he felt the man pressing against his back, pushing until Baekhyun’s chin bumped against the cold of the wall. He sighed. He really didn’t have time for this.

"Unlock your watch and open up your I-Bank," he heard behind him, wincing when he felt the man’s breath against his nape, quickly replaced by the icy sharpness of a blade.

"I need to actually see it in order to unlock it," he said, raising his arms from where they were hanging on his sides, useless. Truly useless. Baekhyun was really bad at fighting with his actual limbs.

The man grabbed the back of his jacket, pulled harshly, swirled him around, and pushed his back against the wall again. Now that he could actually see his face, Baekhyun found this even more ridiculous. He was probably in his forties. What kind of forty year old had time for petty crimes. A good 25% of every forty year old in the country. He’d heard it in the news just last month.

Baekhyun raised his arm very slowly, raised his other hand and brought it towards his P-watch just as carefully. The man’s gaze instantly dropped to the device and Baekhyun pressed two fingers on the screen to unlock it before lurching himself forward, his lips hitting the other’s for a split moment during which he accidentally bit his own tongue. Pain vivified in his mouth and he felt the blade cutting through the side of his neck as the man pushed him back. He felt a sting on his skin, a slight wetness but he ignored it in favor of watching the man’s eyes widen, his features freezing, his skin reddening like he’d been holding his breath in for a long time. He hadn’t.

He stumbled backwards, tripped, the knife clattering as it fell on the floor between them before it was covered by the man’s body as it followed the crash. Baekhyun sighed, wiped his lips with the back of his hands once, twice, thrice, and leaned down to pick up the bag, inspecting its insides even if he knew the glove probably wasn’t broken. He looked around, up along the walls, glad not to see any cameras. Not that it would matter when the government and the authorities were so inefficient in Systia.

He picked up his walking where he had been interrupted and finally got out of that narrow alley, only walking for a short moment before he reached the DownBus stop. As soon as he settled next to an old woman drowsing out on her feet, his P-watch vibrated with a notification.

**[startrack]**

_[are you okay darling]_

Baekhyun tilted his head as he read over the message twice before projecting his keyboard up to type a reply.

[Why wouldn’t I be?]

_[I’m just asking bc you won’t be anymore in a bit]_

Startrack said really weird things from time to time, really random things. Baekhyun had stopped trying to figure it out the day he’d asked what was his birthday and Startrack had replied that he had two and which one was Baekhyun asking for. Apparently he had a smart birthday and a stupid birthday. Baekhyun had laughed a lot that day, hadn’t asked more questions that his friend visibly didn’t feel comfortable answering.

[What do you even mean?]

[I don’t understand stupid language]

_[haha I’m laughing very genuinely]_

_[I just mean that I’m about to whoop your ass in the game bitch]_

Baekhyun snorted, hard enough to startle the sleepy old lady who blinked at him. He apologized with a whispered _sorry_ and she smiled at him good-naturedly.

Out of pettiness, Baekhyun decided to ignore Startrack’s last message. The old lady offering him tiny cookies was much more interesting.

Moans stuffed the house full, two voices rising together, chasing each other, clashing into each other and never minding it one bit. Baekhyun minded it a little. It sounded very fake.

But he just lowered the television’s volume and went back to staring at the hand regulator he’d bought yesterday. He hadn’t used it yet. He wanted to but he hadn’t because when he looked at it, it wasn’t his own hand he imagined wearing it. It was Chanyeol’s hand.

Baekhyun hadn’t paid enough attention to his hand, he couldn’t even accurately imagine it but if he wasn’t mistaken, Chanyeol’s hands were pretty big. It would only make sense, the rest of his body was pretty big. Except when he was being cute, not on purpose but naturally. Then he was small. Then he had a natural kind softness about him. Baekhyun just couldn’t stop thinking about him wearing that glove and pleasuring himself. He couldn’t imagine it, imagining someone in an act of pleasure was difficult and Baekhyun didn’t like inaccuracy so he never bothered to. Just the concept of it was appealing enough and he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

They hadn’t talked again since that conversation a few days ago, about Chanyeol using his hand to masturbate. Chanyeol hadn’t reached out to him to schedule a Love Shack meeting and Baekhyun hadn’t really thought about contacting him first either. He was just waiting, had been waiting for a while now. He wondered if Chanyeol had given himself some pleasure in these past days.

He wasn’t sure he liked it. Baekhyun usually didn’t think about anything but sex. Now, he couldn’t stop thinking about sex _and_ Chanyeol. Chanyeol was sex now, maybe.

That didn’t make sense. He sighed, looked up at the television, pursed his lips as he watched a woman riding a red-faced man. Her body didn’t look that flexible, her movements weren’t really fluid, she was bouncing rather than grinding. He looked back down at the package laying on his low table. This glove would probably make his dick very happy. Not that it was a sad dick, he supposed, it could just be very happier. With this glove.

He grabbed his P-watch from the table, projected the screen in front of him, raised his keyboard, and typed a message on a whim.

[Hi! I think we should meet today!]

He mindlessly stared at the porn while waiting for a reply. When the camera zoomed into the woman’s face and she started humming exaggeratedly and making faces, Baekhyun switched the channel into a random series. Before he could focus on it, his watch vibrated and he looked at the projected screen.

**[Park Chanyeol]**

_[in the love shack?]_

_[this is a bit too sudden..]_

Baekhyun smiled at the screen. So he would need a moment of preparation before going to the Love Shack with him. Cute. Should be annoying, but cute. Baekhyun didn’t particularly appreciate people who acted like a prude but somehow, this didn’t come off as Chanyeol being a prude. It just came off as him being adorable. And the mere fact that he’d gone to the Love Shack on his own, twice, proved that he wasn’t that much of a conservative guy as he seemed to be at first sight.

[No we could just get coffee if that’s fine with you!]

They’d met twice already, they could get coffee and hold a conversation, couldn’t they?

_[oh]_

_[I’d like that!]_

_[I need a break from work anyway]_

He got up and started getting ready as they arranged the exact time and place of the meeting. It didn’t take long for him to shove pants and a sweater over his body so he lingered around the house a little more since Chanyeol had said he’d need to take a shower and get ready and Baekhyun really didn’t want to arrive at the café first and have to wait on his own for ten boring minutes.

He took his time while walking to their meeting point, ambling in the streets, standing along with a small group of people who watched the violent arrestation of a man who’d probably killed someone, judging by the dozen officers gathered around him. He didn’t stay for long, continued walking while avoiding the crowd, people who ran, children who jumped around with their newest toy, people who argued, and soon enough, he pushed the door of the café open.

Chanyeol was already there, sitting by the window. Their eyes met as the door closed behind Baekhyun and he smiled. For a few reasons. The main one being how _cute_ Chanyeol looked. With his curly hair that looked darker than usual, probably still wet from the shower he’d just taken, one strand of curly hair reached down his forehead further than the others, a bit longer. He was wearing glasses that looked too big for his face but that somehow managed to look just right for his face at the same time, accentuating the shape of his eyes rather than overshadowing it, sharpening the rest of his features.

Baekhyun walked to him, taking a seat across from him, putting the black plastic bag on his lap.

"I’ve already ordered because surprisingly, the waiter came to me right away," Chanyeol said first, nodding towards the cup of coffee he had his hands wrapped around. "What do you wanna drink?"

"Just a latte," Baekhyun answered but before he could raise his hand to call for the waiter’s attention, Chanyeol did it first with a firm but kind _excuse me._

He ordered for Baekhyun when the man came up to them, checking in with Baekhyun by glancing at him while he spoke the order out. He nodded with a smile and Chanyeol thanked the man before turning back to him.

"It’s nice to see you outside of the Love Shack," he said, initiating the conversation first again.

Baekhyun intertwined his hands and put them on the small, round surface of the table, leaning forward a little.

"Yeah, I guess we did meet under unconventional circumstances," he said, puffing the beginning of his sentence with a silent laugh. "But I think a brothel is part of the very few places where you can get to truly know someone."

Chanyeol laughed at that, a quick sound, and looked down at his cup. He traced the tip of the cupholder with the tip of his finger.

He looked so nice. The largeness of his beige sweater softened him up, hardened the shape of his shoulders and their breadth.

"It’s a little different but it reminds me of a show I’ve been watching," he said, leaning back into his chair.

"A show about brothels?" Baekhyun asked, interest pricked. Chanyeol looked much more comfortable in here, much less jittery than he’d been both times they’d met at the Love Shack.

"No," he laughed, looking up when the waiter approached them again with Baekhyun’s order. They both thanked him at the same time, with the same tone, and Baekhyun smiled as he pulled the cup closer to him. "I don’t really think there’s a show about brothels," Chanyeol hummed once the waiter was gone again.

"There isn’t," Baekhyun confirmed, twisting his lips in disappointment. _That_ was something he’d watch. Chanyeol smiled, a corner of his lips higher than the other, his shoulders jumping faintly. "What’s that show you’re watching then?"

Once Chanyeol started getting into an entire speech to reply to that question, Baekhyun wasn’t sure whether it had been the right question or not. It wasn’t unpleasant to listen to Chanyeol longly present to him _American Horror Story Hotel_ , a show from the Old Age that Baekhyun had absolutely never heard about. People never really cared about the Old Age, that was why it was called that way. It was in the past, ancient and so far away from what humanity had become now.

But Chanyeol made it interesting. It was a little difficult to understand the plot, something about ghosts and serial killers and vampires and a Lady called Gaga. It was a very confusing plot but Chanyeol was very entertaining to watch as he fawned over the aesthetics and how hot that lady was and how majestic she acted and how hot her companions were and how the acting of some characters was great but _honestly it is kinda lacking because nothing is happening while too much is happening there is no plot but the aesthetics of it saved the season._

Baekhyun understood next to nothing he was talking about in that stream of words but he enjoyed listening to it, stared at Chanyeol over the rim of his cup even as he took sips from his coffee. He talked with a nice, deep voice that wasn’t really steady, he sometimes hummed while looking for his words, sometimes his voice suddenly got higher, sometimes he clenched his teeth to keep his laughter in and huffed it out instead. He frowned when he talked about more aesthetics and how progressive it had been back then to have that one transgender character in the show.

He was a very animated person, he talked a lot with his hands but that never distracted Baekhyun from his handsome face. When he smiled, his cheeks raised his glasses up a little but the way his nose carried the rim of his classes right on the bridge made it easier to focus on the mole he had on the nose. He didn’t look timid at all anymore. It was kind of intriguing.

"Is there a particular reason why you suddenly wanted to see me, though?" he asked then, once he was done complaining about the policeman’s stupid wife. Baekhyun had forgotten her name.

He had also surprisingly forgotten what was resting on his lap.

"Oh, yeah," he said, pushing his empty cup of coffee aside to put the plastic bag on the table instead. He couldn’t help but grin. He was going to get an amazing reaction, he just knew it. "I have a gift for you."

"A gift?" Chanyeol looked down at the bag, eyebrows raised. It always seemed to automatically widen his eyes. Widen the range of his handsomeness. Baekhyun truthfully didn’t know how Chanyeol could get even more good-looking.

Baekhyun hummed and pushed the bag towards him, watching as Chanyeol grabbed it with a smile.

"Thanks," he said, opened up the bag to look inside. "You really didn’t have to. There isn’t even a special occasion but—" He stopped, mouth remaining parted. Baekhyun kept his own closed by biting into his lower lip. Chanyeol whipped his big gaze back up to him. "You’re offering me _this_ in a coffee shop?" he questioned, lowering his voice, words stumbling over each other. A little bit of panic.

Baekhyun shrugged with his eyebrows. "We’re in a coffee shop _because_ I wanted to offer you this."

Chanyeol silently stared at him for a moment, blinking. Baekhyun watched for any appearance of red flushing his face. Nothing on his face but his ears were just a tiny little bit pinker.

"You said you used your hand," Baekhyun explained, trying his hardest not to laugh. He didn’t want the other to think he was making fun of him but this was just too adorable. He had predicted this would happen. It was pretty nice to be able to suddenly make Chanyeol this shy. He was still holding onto the lapels of the bag, immobile. "This is a very nice tool for that. That way you can use your hand but still kinda upgrade at the same time. It’s pretty efficient. I know because I used to have one before. Of course, you don’t have to use it either. It’s just a gift. I really won’t feel bad if you end up just throwing it away so don’t feel obligated at all to use it. I just thought you might like it."

With a satisfied sigh, he pushed his chair back and got up.

"Wait, you’re leaving?" Chanyeol finally spoke, only once Baekhyun was already up on his feet.

He stepped back to push his chair against the table properly. "Yep. I’ve fulfilled my duty." He grinned when Chanyeol’s lips twitched but mostly remained parted with surprise. Maybe fluster. "Well, see you next time. I hope you’ll use it well until we go to the Love Shack together."

"Bye," Chanyeol said, a small sound mostly overtaken by the crinkling of the bag as he gathered the lapels together, closing it off.

With a small wave, Baekhyun headed out of the coffee shop. His watch vibrated after he took only a few steps.

**[startrack]**

_[where you at darling]_

[Just met with a guy]

He hoped Chanyeol would use the glove, at least give it a try. Maybe Baekhyun could contribute to him having the best orgasm of his life this way. Did he want to contribute to it another way? Fore sure. But just offering the other a hand regulator was nice too.

The weather was a little warm today, they must’ve wanted to regulate it after giving Noxis an entire week of coldness. He wondered how it used to be in the Old Age, just waking up and having to go outside without knowing what the weather would be like. There was no such trouble now, the weather was regulated by humans. It hadn’t rained even once in an entire month. It was a little sad. The sky was controlled by humans. It felt like it wasn’t supposed to be. It felt wrong.

He looked down at his watch.

_[ohhh what kind of guy?]_

[A very handsome guy]

A very, very handsome guy.

A child was crying somewhere behind him, a man scolding her for putting her hands in her mouth after touching the ground. Baekhyun quickened his steps, zigzagging amongst the crowd, zigzagging like everyone else did. He didn’t need a headache.

_[you’ve never mentioned a handsome guy before]_

_[is he special?]_

An emoji that side-eyed Baekhyun was added to that last message.

He stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn green. Was Chanyeol special? Baekhyun had never offered a sex toy to anyone. He’d never met someone who had so many contradictions at once.

He looked down to type his answer.

[Not really]

[There’s a lot of handsome guys in the world]

[Just like me]

[Wanna play when I get home?]

Suddenly, people around him started letting out sounds of surprise and talking quickly, honking grumbling from the sky. He looked up, frowning at the long, crisscrossed lines of cairs hovering in place above his head. Right in the middle, two herds of people, every single one of them adorning Flyshoes, he supposed, rushing towards each other with screams and groans and chants, clashing in a swarm of hits and blows and brawls. A gang fight, up in the air.

Not an unusual sight. But a very suffocating one. Soon, bodies would rain from the sky, possibly along with weapons and maybe even cairs.

When the first laser blade plummeted down, people scattered around with panicked, rushed gestures and words. A woman screamed when the blade almost planted on her.

Baekhyun walked away, quick, not looking at the violence and the noise and the disorder hanging over his head and threatening to fall every single time. He could still hear the pain and fool language and the cairs angrily honking, glass shattering, engines roaring in place.

He didn’t look. He walked, escaped, looking down at his own feet even once he was far enough from the fight. He hated this. He hated this city and its inhabitants and its government and its uselessly slow authorities and this dark cloud constantly hovering above his head.

He just wanted a calm sky.

It was a bit creepy to be standing in a room full of replicas of the same frozen face and very unrealistically crude body. No wonder Kangho was an asshole, anyone would lose their mind in this kind of environment.

"Here," Kangho said, throwing an envelope on his desk and blowing out a good chunk of smoke while doing so, as if the smoke was what safely landed the enveloped on the desk.

Baekhyun looked at it. He’d been summoned here for a kill. At 7AM. This could’ve waited until after lunch time at least. Or he could’ve sent the request by message. There was absolutely no necessity for them to meet like this when Kangho had a hacker that could get rid of any trace of interaction between them on the Web.

He said nothing, leaning forward to grab the enveloppe and glancing at Kangho who was very busily staring at one of his AIs. Today, they were wearing nothing but very revealing lingerie. Barely anything was covered. He focused back on opening the enveloppe and pulling, pulling, and then freezing when he saw the name at the back of the file. It took him a second to move his hand again. He twisted his lips inwards. Focused.

Right below the name, there was a list of dates and places. Clubs, cafés with the dates and time in which the target would be there, a home address. Baekhyun frowned, he read the name once more. A common name.

He fully pulled the photo out of the envelope, turned it so he could actually see the front of it.

Curly hair. No glasses. A serious but casual expression. Very handsome features, washed out by the picture’s quality. Bright eyes but dimmed smile. Tall and small. A picture full of contradictions.

Chanyeol Park. Target. The biggest contradiction of them all.


	3. Three

Baekhyun glanced at Kangho, making it quick enough not to rise suspicion out of the man, then looked at the picture again, more properly.

It really was Chanyeol’s face. With a twist to it, the picture was taken while he was adjusting his backpack. His glasses were a little askew. He wasn’t wearing yesterday’s clothes, the picture was probably taken before that.

"Why is there a request on this person?" he asked, unable to restrain his curiosity.

Kangho snorted an ugly sound, spitting a little with the force of it.

"When did I ever give you the reason why you’re killing these people?" he said, tone greasy with mockery, eyebrows raised, rippling his forehead. The fat under his chin giggled with every word he pronounced. "Get out now. I’m busy."

No reason then. As usual. He was merely requested to kill Chanyeol, after giving him a sex toy just the day before.

That was a minor inconvenience. He shoved the picture back inside the envelope and tucked the enveloppe in the inside pocket of his jacket. Without a word, he turned around and left the office, quickly getting out of the building, careful not to bump into the horde of drunk men in the elevator. He pressed his lips together tightly to bear with the stink and only took a deep breath in once he got out of the elevator. It was the ground floor but the men didn’t get out. They looked like they were about to fall asleep in the elevator, Baekhyun paid them no mind and headed out of the building, shoving his hands into his pockets as soon as he stepped into a city crowded with people and with raindrops. It was finally raining.

But Baekhyun had forgotten to take an umbrella before leaving his house. It didn’t matter that much, he still slid into the crowd and adjusted to the quick walking pace of everyone else. This was the good thing about the crowd. Most people were really rushing, no matter what day of the week or time of the day, except for the occasional old people or really annoyingly carefree people.

He walked past the cinema, looking at the movie posters. Nothing really stood out to him except the most popular movie nowadays, one he’d heard about in the news. A movie titled _Ancient New Love,_ the poster slit in two, half of it had a woman with neon hair, dressed like any other girl in the street, with shiny fabric hugging her form while the other half showed a man looking at her from what he supposed was the Old Age, dressed in very old looking ripped jeans and a baggy shirt with the word _BALENCIAGA_ written on it. It was a rather ugly shirt. It probably was a movie about loving someone from the Ancient Age, several dimensions and all that jazz. He wasn’t interested. He looked ahead of himself again, advancing.

Everyone around him had an umbrella, Baekhyun could feel the raindrops running down his face, wetting his thighs, the cold that came with it all. He didn’t like walking when it rained. It was even worse than usual, the crowd doubled, most people had an umbrella with them and everyone was in a bad mood, umbrellas colliding, occasionally ripping, people grumbling. The worst was the running. He side stepped to avoid a young girl running while holding a hand above her head as if that would protect her hairdo from the wetness. He leaned down a little when an old woman walked past him, her height and her umbrella very low. It was better to momentarily lean down and hide under her umbrella than let it scratch his face.

It was loud. So loud. The hit of raindrops on clothes, on the fabric of umbrellas, the silent lightning and its loud brightness, the cars honking above, people chattering and running and screaming. The crowd wasn’t moving. At some point, everyone stopped moving. Baekhyun had to hit elbows against other elbows to make a way for himself in the mob, he looked up, eyes narrowing to uselessly keep water from dropping into them. The lightning crackled once, ripping light through the air, shifting everything around him. When he blinked, blinked, then looked ahead of himself again, he collided into a group of men all standing in a tight circle around something he couldn’t see. No one said anything, no one even turned to him to curse him.

He side stepped them and continued, looking around. The rain was too bright. Purple. A bit too purple and pink and green from the neon signs all around them, food, saunas, shops, brothels. There was not a single Holo-ad around. There was too many people around. People who usually ignored each other but who, for some reason, now, walked quickly, spoke on the phone loudly, gathered together, clashing umbrellas and screaming over the rain. Once he reached First Avenue, where the crowd was always the densest, waiting in swarms on either side of crosswalks for Downbuses and other pedestrians to pass.

A Downbus drove by towards the crosswalk at full speed, stopping with a screech when a man jumped out and started running to reach the other side despite the light being red for pedestrians. People all around gasped. Baekhyun ran a hand through his hair to free his gaze from the wet strands. The rain and the colors weren’t enough to blur the man’s angry expression when the driver pulled down his window, leaned half of his body out of it and screamed at him with grand gestures full of fury. Then, the light turned green and everyone rushed forward.

Nothing was moving and everything was clogging up the streets at the same time. The polarity of panic. What was happening?

Someone bumped into him, cursed, and Baekhyun started walking too. He looked up when the roar of metal colliding with metal tore through the air. Two cairs had collided, one of them was wobbling in the air while the other had sparks coming out of its engine. Both of them were honking at each other.

People scattered around in case any cair would fall on their head and Baekhyun followed the panicked wave. What was happening? He looked around, pulled his hands out of his pockets. No one was moving anymore. He waited. There was no line. People weren’t standing in line. It was just a mass of panic. He looked around and his gaze caught sight of the Ultra hanging over the avenue, a gathering of four different screens forming a square. He focused and instead of hearing the people and the anger and the affolement and the rain, he heard the news anchor’s voice. It was always playing, the news on the Ultra. It was easy to tune it out when you walked past this place every single day of your life, you didn’t hear it anymore.

But now, now Baekhyun heard it. He heard it very clearly. New Gods descending upon Earth. That was the headline written in big red letters, right above them the news anchor was nervously playing with her hair with each word she pronounced. He couldn’t hear her very well, nobody could. The volume was too low and the noise was too boisterous. That was why everyone was looking at their P-watch like it was their first time seeing such a device.

Baekhyun frowned, watched the images streaming on the Ultra.

_"New gods… on earth… never before…"_ Images of important-looking people rushing into meeting rooms. _"Ministry of Scientific… ago… said we weren’t alone…"_ Images of the MSP giving the speech he’d caught a few seconds of on television the other day. _"What does this… who are they and what are the…"_

New Gods. New Gods. That didn’t make sense. Gods didn’t just appear. Gods weren’t just born.

Baekhyun shoved his hands into his pockets again, looked around. A woman was crying, heaving, an anxiety attack rattling her body. A man was holding his son in his arms, watching the screen with lines of worry crossing his entire face. Everyone was in a similar state. Baekhyun didn’t understand. He elbowed his way through the crowd and headed home again.

It took longer than usual to reach his place. Once he arrived, Baekhyun was positively pissed. It wasn’t the end of the world yet. He didn’t understand. He closed the door behind him, making sure it was locked, and then headed straight to the bathroom where he took a quick shower, just wetting his body with warm water to get rid of the cold humidity spread all over his skin. He threw warm clothes on, grabbed a towel to dry his hair, and went to the living room. The television turned on once he dropped on his couch. He grabbed the remote and switched to a news channel.

"… true that New Gods have descended upon us," were the first words the Minister of Scientific Progress pronounced as soon as his face appeared, painting the screen with solemnity. Baekhyun read the headline at the bottom of the screen. MSP’s press conference concerning the New Gods. "Two of them are with us now. They’ve found us through the night and we deemed it your right to know about it as soon as the sun rose. However, there is absolutely no need to panic or worry or get into any kind of frenzy. They’re Gods. Goodness is in their essence and they’ve descended upon us to guide us through the chaotic era we’re living in. We’ve been communicating the whole night—"

Baekhyun switched the channel and the MSP’s dramatic tone was cut off by a very high pitched moan.

Everybody was panicking for nothing. This didn’t mean anything. This barely even made sense. Religion had almost entirely disappeared from society centuries ago. It was put in the back of everyone’s mind. Baekhyun didn’t believe in gods and the remaining people who did, still worshipped the Ancient Gods, it was still the same monotheist religions.

Baekhyun didn’t have time for this, didn’t have any kind of interest in religion or politics. He had absolutely no idea what the MSP exactly meant by _New gods have descended on Earth_ and he had absolutely not a single care on the matter.

For a moment, he watched an AI’s cock mechanically fuse in and out of the screaming woman, before pulling his phone out of his pocket. Baekhyun had other things to attend to besides new gods and anxious people. He quickly typed a message.

[Hey I was wondering if we coud meet again soon?]

He’d seen on the back of Chanyeol’s photo that he would be at Étincelle in two days. Baekhyun had only gone to that night club once last year, for another kill. He really hadn’t thought Chanyeol was the party kind of guy. He tried imagining him dancing, wondered if he was a good dancer or if his long limbs were more of a hazard to him on the dance floor, until the projected screen tinged with a notification and cut him in his musings.

**[Chanyeol]**

_[Hey! I’m gonna be busy with work today and tomorrow I’m sorry :(]_

Baekhyun stared at the screen. Had gifting the other with a sex toy weirded him out too much?

_[But I’m gonna be at Club Etincelle Saturday night with friends, we could meet there?]_

_[If you’re not comfortable with clubs we could meet at the café on Sunday though]_

Baekhyun smiled. This boy was too kind. He pressed on Chanyeol’s name and it led him to his profile where he could check his birthday. They were the same age. Baekhyun had been too busy staring at the picture Kangho had given him to truly check on his birth information given to him back in the office.

[I’m fine with Etincelle on Saturday!]

_[Great! Can’t wait to meet you again :3]_

Baekhyun closed the conversation and focused on his television. This porn wasn’t that bad even if it was obviously scripted. He might actually end up wanking to _truly_ start his day.

Etincelle was still as popular as Baekhyun remembered it to be and it wasn’t really that surprising.

Not only was it a huge night club with several floors, including rentable rooms with sexual or private partying purposes, but it overall had this very chic and fancy feeling to it. It wasn’t crowded with lights attacking from all sides in multiple colors of the rainbow, instead it had a very vibrant color theme, all kinds of red and prunes allied to white counters and sitting areas that brightened the establishment.

The music booming around was trendy and wasn’t even just music but Feelsic, the establishment must be using special kinds of speakers, the kind that actually spread the music into the air and made it palpable, made it a whisper against the skin. Baekhyun could feel the vibrations and the beat on his body, not because it was excessively loud, but because the music was actually all around him. And it seemed to be what pushed almost the entirety of patrons into dancing, the dance floor crowded with movement and bodies. It was nice to watch, especially when some people grinded on each other more than they danced.

But it didn’t distract Baekhyun from his target and after exchanging a few messages with Chanyeol, he quickly found him in one of the sitting booths, talking to two other men animatedly before looking up at Baekhyun and waving at him with grand gestures once he was close enough.

"Hey," he greeted Baekhyun with, joining a bright smile to it. The prune shades of the club’s lights suited the definition of his features.

"Hi," Baekhyun said, smiling back at him and making sure to meet eyes with the other two people sitting on Chanyeol’s left. They both had silver hair, he couldn’t see very well in here but it looked like one of them had a darker shade.

"We were waiting for you," Chanyeol said, patting the spot next to him on the seat. Baekhyun gave him a mimicry of an honored expression and sat down.

"More like _he_ was waiting for you and we were just keeping him company because this crybaby hates being alone," the lighter-haired guy jumped in to say, leaning a little in front of Chanyeol to be closer to Baekhyun.

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes at him. "When did you even see me cry?"

"You’re able to cry without shading any tears, how amazing," the other guy said in a snort. They were quite fun, they made Chanyeol’s face do quite amusing expressions. "I’m Jiho and he’s Jinyoung, by the way," he proceeded to say, gesturing to the other guy as he introduced him.

"They’re very prone to embarrassing me," Chanyeol added in a loud whisper, looking at Baekhyun who laughed.

"I think they’re doing a pretty good job at it," he said, scrunching his nose back at Jinyoung when he twisted his features into a funny grimace of pride.

"And now that you’re here, we’re just gonna go and dance a little," Jiho said, looking at Chanyeol.

"Sure, go ahead. Don’t worry about it, I can keep an eye on this guy now," he played along before Chanyeol could say anything, patting his thigh with a quick movement.

The two men laughed at the way Chanyeol exaggerated rolled his eyes, looking skywards for a moment rather than actually rolling his eyes. They left after that, Chanyeol tutting as they both watched them wiggle their way into the dance floor. Then, Chanyeol took the initiative to call for the Distributor, a human shaped robot that was filled with drinking options, regularly replenishing at the bar between each service. Chanyeol ordered for him again, something unnecessary since Baekhyun wasn’t unfamiliar with clubs the same way he wasn’t unfamiliar with waiters in cafés. Maybe Chanyeol just liked doing this for people.

They talked a little about Baekhyun finding his way here easily, about Chanyeol having a really high alcohol tolerance while Baekhyun started blushing at his second glass and then got instantly very drowsy unless he continued drinking a little more and then turned very crazy instead. It wasn’t true, Baekhyun had never once in his life gotten drunk. It was too dangerous, he couldn’t risk losing the control over his mind and accidentally kissing someone. But Chanyeol laughed a lot at his lies. Baekhyun couldn’t fully hear his laughter from the music but it was a nice laugh. He wasn’t wearing his glasses tonight, his features were clearer, barer, Baekhyun could notice how handsome he was more easily.

He could notice a lot of things more easily here, like the way he occasionally held his bottle of beer between two fingers, like it was a glass of wine, the way he pressed his lips together to keep his laughter in when Baekhyun said something funny about holo-ads, to keep himself from spitting out his drink. Or the way Chanyeol actually was an assertive, confident person, smiling back at anyone who smiled him, with different degrees of enthusiasm depending on who it was. Baekhyun caught him staring at a boy who was so good at body waves that he wondered if he had somehow paid for someone to take the bones out of his body.

What he noticed the most, however, was the degree of control Chanyeol had over his friends. It wasn’t really manipulation or actual control, it was rather like he was the one everyone sought for approval of anything. And he had a lot of friends. A dozen different faces came to see them throughout their conversations and despite Chanyeol introducing them all, Baekhyun just knew there was no way he could remember that many names. They didn’t all come to Chanyeol for the same reasons though, some of them asked him to keep their phone, a heavily pierced boy came to drunkenly tell him about that one woman he’d just made out with, a pretty young woman consulted him about whether or not she should reply to her boyfriend’s drunk texts, another guy asked for his advice concerning someone who seemed to be their common friend. From what Baekhyun gathered, that woman was in the club too and he just didn’t know how to and wasn’t sure if he ever should approach her as something more than a friend. Chanyeol seemed to be a really good matchmaker and wingman.

Baekhyun had reached that conclusion after Chanyeol spent five entire minutes telling him about how he was friends with both of these people and they both were looking for someone and after analyzing everything and bringing them together a few times and talking with them separately, he thought that tonight was the perfect moment for something to finally happen. He was cute. Very cute in his excitement. He seemed to really like talking about people. And despite not knowing a single thing about all these people, Baekhyun really enjoying this, listening to Chanyeol talk about his friends and all their relationship problems. He just enjoyed Chanyeol’s company.

No one ever really told him about this kind of things. He didn’t really have anyone to. He supposed this was what friendship was like. The only friends he had were AIs and brothel workers, otherwise he had a dozen friends on Nebula but talking with someone on the internet was different from what was happening here. He’d never really craved this but sitting with Chanyeol and talking about anything and everything wasn’t that bad.

Besides, he could actually observe the other while he spoke, his gestures, the way his eyes never fully focused on Baekhyun, the tattoo he had on his forearm. Something like a guitar but not quite, it was rather geometrical, mainly done out of circles and lines.

"Your tattoo is really pretty," he said, gesturing towards it with his half empty glass. It was the least-alcoholic drink you could find here. Mostly made out of strawberry juice and syrup. Baekhyun had never tasted it but after Chanyeol had asked him what he’d like to drink so seriously, it felt wrong to just stick to the default beer. Chanyeol wasn’t even too drunk to notice that Baekhyun wasn’t sipping on it like his targets usually were.

"It’s a sonor trace!" Chanyeol perked up, putting his bottle of beer on the table in front of them and extending his arm towards him, showing off the ink on the inside of his forearm. "It plays Coldplay’s Everglow," he said, tracing a finger over the strings of the instrument.

Baekhyun leaned closer towards his arm but even if he could barely hear anything, he could make out a few pleasant notes, a really nice melody that he didn’t recognize, completely different from the heavy bass of the club tickling his skin.

"I don’t know that song," he said, straightening up and looking at the sonor trace. It had always been a concept he liked. The ink on the skin and the reactive musical chip under the skin.

Chanyeol shrugged, leaning to grab his bottle again and wrapping his hands around it, putting it on his lap. Someone bumped into their table while passing by, not even stopping to apologize. It was nothing unusual, neither of them minded.

"It’s a band from the Old Age."

"You seem to really know a lot about it," Baekhyun noted with a bit of wonder. No one truly cared about the Old Age. He rarely even heard that name. Old Age.

"I do," Chanyeol nodded energetically, grinning his dimple out. "More than anyone."

Old Age nerd. He had one of the most advanced, rare types of tattoos on the market and the one song he decided to register under it was one from the Old Age. Cute contradictions, that was what Chanyeol seemed to be made of.

Baekhyun liked it. He liked it but this was it. No one had came to see them in awhile, Chanyeol had drank quite a bit and looked a little flushed on the cheeks. This was the perfect moment to let Chanyeol know that he liked it, maybe put his hand on his thigh, maybe whisper it into his ear, lure him outside and kiss him - kill him.

But he didn’t. Because too many people had seen his face. He hadn’t planned there to be so many people with Chanyeol. He should do it another time, when it’d be just the two of them. It was too crowded now, it would blow his cover. Just because of that, nothing else.

Instead, Baekhyun put his glass down on the table and fully turned to Chanyeol, folding a leg on the seat, between them, and leaning closer. Chanyeol automatically leaned closer to him too.

"Did you use my gift?"

For a moment, Chanyeol said nothing, did nothing, just continued looking at the table while leaning his ear towards him. Baekhyun wondered if perhaps he hadn’t heard him, but then Chanyeol laughed, shaking his head at him.

He spoke through his crooked smile, a remnant of his laughter. "You’re really always this blunt, aren’t you?"

He supposed he was blunt, even if that only applied to this particular subject.

"Knowing that people are pleasured and therefore happy just makes me happy," he admitted with no shame. It was genuine. He just believed that everyone needed to have at least an orgasm every two days to lead a mentally healthy life. An orgasm a day was what really kept the doctor away though.

Chanyeol looked at him for a faint but silent moment. He had a really attentive gaze, a really attractive smile. Baekhyun found it nice to just look at it. It was a little grounding, calming.

"It’s kinda cute," Chanyeol said and Baekhyun huffed a laugh. No one had ever called him cute before, at least not in many years. Before he could say anything about it, Chanyeol looked down at his bottle. The music changed into a happier, more energetic tune. The air smelled almost sweet. "I actually tried but," he stopped, tilting his head and frowning, "I guess I’m doing something wrong because it didn’t really feel like much?"

Baekhyun frowned. He only had very good memories of euphoria from that particular toy.

"How were you using it exactly?" he asked, a bit concerned. He’d gifted it to Chanyeol for him to enjoy it. If he couldn’t use it well then there was no point to it. "If you tell me, maybe we can figure it out together. I’ve only heard positive reviews about it."

Chanyeol parted his lips to say something but before he could, someone bumped into their table again.

"Hey, can you come for a second?" Baekhyun recognized Jinyoung from earlier, he looked a little more disheveled and much less sober. Very worried. "I think Jinho’s not feeling well. He’s in the bathroom and I couldn’t really find the others."

"Is he alright?" Chanyeol asked, instantly putting his bottle on the table next to the two empty ones and getting up. He turned to Baekhyun with an apologetic expression, features scrunched. "Sorry, I gotta go and check on him. They keep saying I’m the one who needs a sitter but it’s always the contrary."

Baekhyun smiled, waving a hand in front of him and shaking his head at the same time. "It’s alright, I don’t mind. Go check up on your friend."

With a quick smile, Chanyeol grabbed Jinyoung’s hand, not a random gesture but a preventive one, judging by the way Jinyoung was wobbling as they walked into the crowd and headed to the bathroom.

Baekhyun sat there for a few seconds, looking around him, looking at the glass in front of him. It was pretty tasty. He grabbed it and downed the last gulp of it. He put it down and then proceeded to type a message on his P-watch.

[I’m gonna leave now, something came up. Nothing bad though don’t worry! I hope your friend is okay and don’t worry, I’ll be free to be your Hand Regulator Prof another time]

He read over the message twice, signed it off with a happy emoji, looked up to make sure Chanyeol wasn’t already coming back, and then sent it. He found his way out of the club, making sure not to run into any of Chanyeol’s friends, and sighed heavily once the musical caresses on his skin were replaced by the fresh air of the outside.

It was just a little cold, he should’ve probably taken a jacket with him before coming here. But he wasn’t supposed to even feel cold at the end of this night. He was supposed to have Chanyeol’s body pressed against his, Chanyeol’s lips pressed against his for a last touch of warmth before he went cold forever. Another time. Tonight just wasn’t the right night for Chanyeol’s ending.

He waited for the group of drunk young girls in front of him to scatter before stepping forward, avoiding the people queuing up to get into the club, already drunk and jumping in place in rhythm to the music murmuring on the other side of the wall.

Before he could even figure out whether he wanted to walk or take the Downbus or even an Airxi, his watch vibrated and he looked at it, lips twisting when he realized that it wasn’t from Chanyeol.

**[Kangho]**

_[Why the fuck didn’t you kill him?]_

Baekhyun sighed. Right. Of course Kangho had been watching him, either by hacking one of the cameras in the club or sending a man to hide inside and watch him.

_[You had the occasion to.]_

_[It’s been three fucking days since I gave you the job.]_

_[Did you suddenly turn into a retard who can’t do his damn job?]_

_[The client is waiting.]_

Who the hell was this client even? Baekhyun watched the stream of messages popping up on his screen, still walking, looking up from time to time to make sure he wouldn’t bump into anyone, wondering if he’d actually even met the client today, if it was actually one of Chanyeol’s own friends. He didn’t think so. He wasn’t that good at reading people but no one had seemed to hold a grudge against Chanyeol. Why did Chanyeol even have a death request on him?

_[You’ve already been pissing me off these past few days if you start failing at your job too you’ll regret it, Byun.]_

Baekhyun scrunched his nose. That wasn’t his name. It wasn’t. Kangho knew it. Baekhyun had no last name. Asshole.

A wobbling woman bumped into him. He looked up, raising his eyebrows at her wide smile, her closed eyes, and the blue around her mouth, stained by the green of her lipstick. She was high on Schmurfs, that new trendy drug that apparently made you feel as small as a blue cube of sugar. Baekhyun had heard about it on the news. It was an ugly word, he had no idea why that drug was called that way. He wasn’t even sure that word even existed.

The vibrations of his watch called back for him and he side stepped the woman, eyeing the holes fashionably scattered all over her dress before looking back down at his watch and continuing his walk.

_[You better get your head out of your own ass and get to it asap.]_

Baekhyun took a deep breath in. He hated this. He hated having to put up with this treatment. It wasn’t even that bad. He wasn’t treated like a slave, he wasn’t abused, he wasn’t disrespected every single day like Baekhyun knew some people were. But he hated this. He shouldn’t be treated like this. He hated this.

But he had no choice. He didn’t really bother looking for another choice. This was comfortable, this job was a habit, he would be lost without it. Baekhyun had nothing else to do. Nothing besides kissing people to kill them and conquering planet after planet on stupid VR games.

[I will.]

He let his arm drop down again only to sigh when the watch vibrated again. He waited a few seconds, quickened his steps. He really needed someone to bend him over right now. That was the only thing that would save his day. But he was too lazy for that. He would just take care of himself once he reached home.

He looked down at his watch, ready to turn it off to put a stop to Kangho’s very unpleasant presence in his life for even just a night. But it wasn’t Kangho and it wasn’t unpleasant.

**[Chanyeol]**

_[Aw :( It’s alright, we’ll see each other another time! I really enjoyed talking with you about something other than brothels :p Text me when you get home, be careful on your way. It’s late and dangerous outside.]_

Baekhyun tilted his head at the screen, reading the message over once more. No one ever told him to text them once he got home to make sure he actually got home. No one ever told him to be careful outside either. Not that he needed to be. There was some security advantages to having poison on his lips or on his tongue or in his breath or saliva. Baekhyun wasn’t sure. But this was sweet. Chanyeol was so sweet. Kinda bossy with his friends, telling them what to drink and where to dance to avoid the crowd, but very, very sweet. He was sweet with everyone, that only made it nicer.

An impact threw him back a little and ripped his gaze away from the screen. He looked in front of himself, apologized when he met the annoyed gaze of the guy he’d just bumped into. The man said nothing, stared with a frown, and turned back when Baekhyun didn’t apologize a second time. It wasn’t his fault if people were once again gathering into an immobile swarm in the middle of the streets.

The noise was getting parasitical again. Three different songs were playing around him, coming from all sides, different establishments. Noxis was a city that never slept, never froze despite its inhabitants constantly planting themselves in the middle of the streets without moving. But the music wasn’t the problem.

He felt something wet dropping on the tip of his nose.

He looked up, wiped his skin with the back of his hand. The sky was torn apart by another gang war, cries, weapons, hits, laser slicing through the air with each pull of a trigger. Not high enough for him not to see every twitch of every facial feature.

He looked down. The back of his hand was stained a light red - the blood of someone he didn’t know.

He looked up again when everything was shrouded by the boisterous shrieks of police cairs, alarms, sirens, an authoritative voice projected through the air with orders that went unheard. A third party to the war. Blue lights eating away at the rotten purple of the sky, momentarily straining his eyesight.

He looked down, looked ahead from himself.

Even more noise.

Growing louder, growing heavier. Chants.

Someone screamed.

_What are they?_

Hundreds of people shouted in a single voice tied by anger.

_Abominations._

Someone screamed.

_What do the people want?_

Hundreds of people in a single voice thickened by fear.

_The destruction of the New Gods._

Even more sirens, cheers, whistles, clapping. People walking, a long line, thick rows. Not really rows. Disorder. Banners held above their head, writings on their chests.

A loud noise exploded in the sky, everyone around him jumped up, jumped down, raised their hands above their head for protection. _Abominations_. Someone bumped into his back, someone hit his thigh with their head, someone kicked the back of his knees. _The destruction of the New Gods._ Baekhyun looked up, squinting at the cloud of blur in the sky, blue from the police, red from the weapons, loud from the cries.

_Abominations._ It started raining blood. _Abominations._ A few drops. Here. There. Splattering on the ground. On the forehead of an old woman who wailed in fear. _Abominations._ It started raining officers. His eyes stung. Pepper Gas. On criminals, on protestants. Officers landed on the ground, in the midst of the manifestants, on top of manifestants. Screams, shouts, orders, and refusal. _Destruction._

In the sky, people were dying. In the streets, people were fighting.

Suffocating. It was suffocating, the swarm, the noise, the lights, the gaz tearing at his eyes. 

Baekhyun turned around, bumped into people, collected curses and cries for help. He walked, walked, until he was out of here.

He ran, ran, seeking refuge in his home. It was safer to have a rooftop hanging between the sky and his life.

"What do you think about the New Gods?"

Baekhyun looked up at Jackson, sliding his thigh higher over his, until he felt the other’s hand twitching against his shoulder.

"I think your dick’s the only god I should focus on right now," he whispered, making sure that his lower lip would brush against Jackson’s neck with each word he pronounced.

He didn’t want to talk about that. He didn’t like hearing about that either, the New Gods. He still didn’t care, even less now that they’d spread chaos in the streets.

He slid his hand down, circling a finger around a nipple but not lingering. He liked the feeling of the other’s sculpted abdomen under his palm better. And Jackson seemed to very much like the feeling of Baekhyun’s thigh rubbing against his cock. When Baekhyun pulled away from his neck to look up at him, his lips were parted, his eyes hooded.

Then, he felt a hand grabbing his hand, keeping it in place. He had big hands. Baekhyun enjoyed his big hands. He kind of wanted a few fingers back inside of him. He kind of wanted Jackson to do it while fucking him at the same time. He’d never tried that, fingers and a cock at the same time. Maybe he should start getting interested in threesomes, actually.

But for now, it was Jackson he was interested in and disappointed in when he pushed Baekhyun’s thigh away from the most interesting part of his body, still holding onto it with his hand as he looked down at Baekhyun with a clouded gaze.

"I would give anything to let you worship my cock again," he said and it could’ve been funny, would’ve been a very funny statement if he didn’t actually put his cock to use with very sharpened skills. Baekhyun had had sex with a lot of people. He knew when to respect and appreciate someone’s talented use of their own body. Jackson’s hand rose up along the back of his thigh in a sumptuous sensation. Baekhyun parted his legs a little. "But I have to go to work."

He said it with such disappointment that Baekhyun couldn’t help but mimic his expression, albeit seriously.

"Do you?" he asked through his frown.

"Unfortunately," Jackson sighed, looking at him, blinking rapidly a few times. "I would really stay if I could." He weighed down on his words by squeezing Baekhyun’s ass with a firm grip. It sent shivers down his legs. "But work," he said then, voice a bit too loud as he blinked more but this time nodded decisively.

He then pulled away from Baekhyun who gathered the sheets above his body to make up for the sudden lack of touch on his skin. He said nothing, attentively watching Jackson’s back muscles shift and tense as he ran a hand through his hair and then stretched his arms. Baekhyun would’ve appreciated that back view while he fucked Jackson. A shame.

He kept watching the other as he got dressed, smiled every time Jackson glanced at him throughout the whole process. He liked the attention.

"Aren’t you going to kiss me before you go?" he asked as Jackson adjusted his jacket over his shoulders. It was a very ugly jacket, green and yellow and red. He should’ve kept his clothes off.

He raised his eyebrows at Baekhyun in an expression of smugness. "So now you want to kiss me?"

Baekhyun whispered a laugh. "Maybe if I kiss you, you’ll find me again someday."

Jackson stepped closer to the bed, dug a hand into the mattress, and sought Baekhyun’s face with his. Baekhyun’s gaze fell to his lips.

"I’ll find you as soon as I’m done." He cupped Baekhyun’s cheek with his other hand, his fingers digging into the skin as he tilted his head up. "I’m going to end my day with you blowing me," he said before pressing his lips against Baekhyun’s.

It lasted only a short moment, Baekhyun could barely feel the press of their lips together before Jackson pulled away, crooked smile and sure gaze.

"More tonight," he said, a statement and not a question. He was sure that Baekhyun would accept being with him tonight.

Baekhyun remained silent, nodded his head at the other and stretched his arms over his head. Starting his day with sex always put him in agood mood, even better than starting his morning with the company of his own toys.

"Have a nice day," Baekhyun greeted the other and with one last lingering look, Jackson headed out towards the door.

His first step was steady, he met Baekhyun’s attentive eyes over his shoulders. His second step was a trip. His third step was wobbly. He raised an arm, extended it to the left to balance himself. A cough. A wheeze. His fourth step pulled him down to the ground. His body convulsed on the floor for a short moment. Baekhyun watched it happen with a frown on. This wasn’t the most glorious death ever. He should’ve told him not to put that jacket on.

He closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the warmth of the bed. He hadn’t slept at all the whole night, most of it spent conversing with Jackson after accosting him in the street and asking for the way to a hotel. It hadn’t been hard to convince Jackson to let him buy him a drink as a thanks. He hadn’t had to get his target drunk this time _and_ he even got to have amazing sex. The loss of sleep was worth it.

He jumped up into a sitting position, stretched his waist by turning his upper body to the left, to the right, and then he stood up, collecting his clothes from the floor and putting them on. Once he was dressed, he stood besides the body, blinked twice consecutively to snap a picture with his Rec’contacts. Quickly, he sent it to Kangho, adding in his message the address of the hotel and that he’d need him to send people to clean up behind him. He wasn’t going to clean up on his own and he couldn’t just leave the body to be found by the authorities in a hotel room, the people at the welcome desk had seen his face. Not that it mattered. Hundreds of murders went unpunished every day in this country.

Once everything was sent, he stepped over the body and got out of the room, smiled at the woman on the reception desk, and got out of the hotel. The weather was nice today, a bit chilly and still very purple, but still pretty nice. it wasn’t raining and the clouds up in the sky were minimal. Even traffic was okay. It was too early for the rush hour. He decided to take an Airxi, unwilling to walk and encounter another episode of riots, protests, or gang wars. At least, if he was in a Cair, he’d be pretty much protected. And gang wars didn’t happen at six in the morning.

Standing in front of the hotel, he opened his Airxi app and sent a request. The app replied to him that he’d have to wait less than a minute for an Airxi to pick him up. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looked around to pass the time, and soon enough a shadow hovered over him. He looked up and watched the Airxi slowly lowering down to the ground in front of him, a siren resonating around. Useless, there was no pedestrian around Baekhyun, the Cair wouldn’t risk crushing anyone by landing. Protocol, he supposed. Airxis were always loud with their sirens. He got in, gave his address to the driver, and when the cair rose into the air, he remembered why he preferred walking. This wasn’t the most pleasant sensation.

He quickly fastened his seatbelt, looking out the window. There wasn’t much traffic, at least. That meant there was less people that the cair could potentially bump into, less people to avoid by making turns, swirls, jumps, and dodges. That was a positive point. His watch vibrated and he looked down at it with a sigh that was cut off when he didn’t see Kangho’s name on the screen.

**[Chanyeol]**

[Hey I was wondering if I could ask you something]

Baekhyun’s shoulder pressed against the door when the car took a sudden turn to the right. He looked up, out of the window on the left to see a car just parked in the middle of the sky. Figures. There was no proper road in the sky therefore no parking restriction. This dumbass government should really start working on air driving rules. It had been decades since cairs became a rather common transportation means and yet, there was no proper rules to it yet. Not even roads.

He chose to focus back down on his watch, pulling the keyboard up. They hadn’t talked even once since that night at the club, Chanyeol had only replied to the message Baekhyun had sent him once home with a relieved emoji. This was more pleasant than thinking about the government, this was a really nice addition to his already amazing day.

[Sure! What’s wrong?]

The reply came instantly.

_[Nothing don’t worry]_

_[I was just wondering]_

The second time that word was used. They hadn’t talked that much through messages but the few times it did happen, Chanyeol had always been more direct. This was either hesitation or unfamiliarity because they hadn’t communicated in a while. And Kangho was giving him shit about that almost every day. But the timing, Baekhyun was just waiting for the right timing.

_[The other night at the club you said to message you if I had any problem with the hand regulator]_

Baekhyun waited for another message to come for a few seconds but it didn’t. He bit into his smile, chewing on his lower lip. He was messaging him about how to properly use the hand regulator. He didn’t say it directly but this was it. Baekhyun hadn’t expected the other to actually do it, he’d thought Chanyeol would be too shy for it. But it looked like Chanyeol was full of surprises every single time they communicated.

And he was probably half naked in his bed, trying to get the toy to work properly. So he was an early morning kind of wanker. That was interesting information. It made Baekhyun wonder what he looked like, probably with no glasses on, most likely with no pants on. Frustrated, perhaps. Eager. Horny. That made him very happy, a little jittery. He didn’t even mind when the driver cursed out loud and honked loudly, he didn’t even look up to see what was happening because another message popped up on his screen.

_[If you’re busy or changed your mind about this, it’s totally alright!]_

Baekhyun huffed amusement out of his mouth. That didn’t sound stressed at all but maybe Chanyeol was stressed. Waiting for Baekhyun’s reply in his bed. Maybe with his ears red. He had lovely ears.

[No no]

[I meant it when I said I’d be your Hand Regulator Prof hehe]

[What’s the problem? Does the toy not work?]

He had dropped it right after buying it, after all. Maybe the impact had actually been strong enough to break the toy. It was all because of that damn petty criminal. While he considered offering Chanyeol to buy him another one, a new message vibrated on his watch.

_[I’m not sure]_

_[Actually it works but… I don’t feel much?]_

Baekhyun tilted his head, reading the messages. Maybe the toy wasn’t to his liking.

[Maybe you’re using it wrong]

[How do you use it exactly?]

It took a moment for the reply to come. But it was an important question. Baekhyun was doing his hardest to make Chanyeol’s dick happy over here.

_[I don’t know I just wear the glove and activate it]_

_[But for example, I mostly feel the vibrations on my hand rather than on my dick]_

Chanyeol writing the word _dick_ shouldn’t be so hot. Baekhyun wasn’t an inexperienced, easily amazed boy. But it was kind of hot. Maybe because it was his first time associating any kind of fool language to Chanyeol. Maybe because it looked like Chanyeol was frustrated enough about this to curse. Or maybe Baekhyun just found him hot because he found most people hot.

[Are you using two modes at the same time?]

_[Yeah]_

_[Vibration and wetness]_

Wetness. Interesting. Baekhyun already knew Chanyeol was into men. Now he also knew he was into topping men.

He took a deep breath in, cleared his throat. He was a professor. A Hand Regulator professor. He should be dedicated to teaching his pupil how to reach an orgasm with the use of the toy. He should definitely not be thinking about his student using said toy on him while simultaneously fucking him.

The cair sped up, Baekhyun’s head pulled a little towards the back. He looked back down at his watch.

[Have you tried any other mode?]

First, they had to make sure the toy wasn’t broken, even if he had an idea why Chanyeol had trouble using it.

_[No this is just my second time using it]_

_[The first time didn’t work and so I’m trying again today but I just messaged you as soon as I noticed it was giving me the same problem]_

[Try using the other modes, just to check if the glove’s broken or not]

He waited a moment when the replies stopped coming. He waited while Chanyeol was trying the other modes on. Probably not on himself, he was probably just switching the modes and feeling them just on his other hand or something. But trying to imagine him with his hand around his cock was much more fun.

_[Yeah it works a little better but still not enough]_

_[I really can only feel it on my fingers]_

He knew it.

[That’s because you have your glove in fingering mode]

[Not in hand job mode]

[So you feel everything only on your fingers, not on the rest of your hand like on your palm]

_[Oh]_

Cute.

_[How do I switch it to hand job mode then?]_

[If I remember correctly there’s a button right where the underside of your wrist is]

[It’s very small it took me a while to find it too]

[You just have to switch it to the other side]

[I also think it’s because the wetness mode makes the glove feel a little heavier around your hand]

[So the focus of your senses shifts on your hand rather than on your cock]

_[Oh]_

_[Yeah found the button]_

_[Thanks!!]_

[Does that feel better now?]

_[Yeah definitely much better]_

Baekhyun blinked at the screen, looked out the window for a moment, following with his eyes a random guy flying amongst the cairs. Some people were truly fearless. Baekhyun perhaps wasn’t fearless enough to turn this conversation into sexting. He would very much like to hear about what Chanyeol was exactly doing for it to feel much better. Was he typing his messages to Baekhyun in-between strokes and tries of different modes?

But this was a target. He should remain professional, again.

[I’m glad your dick’s having a good time then]

[Also a lil tip for you]

[If you want to use the wetness mode, use it combined with the heat mode]

[It’s delectable]

_[Thanks]_

_[You’re the best hand regulator prof ever]_

Baekhyun snorted quietly, stared at the screen, raised his eyebrows at the next message.

_[Also I think I’d like to go the Love Shack this evening]_

_[Would you like to accompany me?]_

It didn’t take him long to reply. This was the perfect occasion. He didn’t think it would ever happen.

[Sure! 8pm?]

_[Yep]_

_[See you tonight!]_

Baekhyun didn’t reply after that and Chanyeol didn’t send anything else.

He supposed he was too busy stroking himself. And Baekhyun was too busy thinking about it.

Chanyeol was already in when Baekhyun arrived at the Love Shack the very same evening.

He didn’t look as jittery as the last time he’d seen him here, didn’t jump or startle like Baekhyun had caught him mid-crime. He was looking through the catalogue again.

"Found someone you like?" Baekhyun asked to greet him, smiling when Chanyeol turned to glance at him before looking back down at the catalogue.

He walked to stand beside him again, folding his arms on the counter just like last time. The only difference tonight was that Tiffany didn’t look annoyed, perhaps she too had noticed that there was some kind of decisiveness to Chanyeol. It was made obvious by how hard he was analyzing every single worker he saw on the screen, eyebrows furrowed.

Baekhyun had never seen someone looking cute while frowning. Usually it scrunched features, made for a grimace. For Chanyeol, it only gave him an endearing twist to the face. Maybe because his face was so kind, so soft, it almost looked like he was forcing himself to frown.

"There’s so many options," he mumbled, switching the page to Minghao. It was the same worker he’d been looking at last time. He looked at Baekhyun with a smile. "Thank you for coming here, by the way. And also for this morning."

"I hope you had a good time," Baekhyun shrugged, genuine. Knowing that he’d contributed to someone’s pleasure had made most of his morning a really happy one.

"I actually did," Chanyeol said in a quiet voice, through an equally as quiet smile. Baekhyun had also spent most of his morning thinking about Chanyeol masturbating.

"If you want to have a good time again, I suggest Minghao." They both looked at Tiffany who’d been quietly watching them until now. He smiled when their eyes met. They were past the stage of greeting each other every time Baekhyun came here. "He’s one of our bests," she added, lowering her voice to that convincing, commercial tone of hers.

"She’s right," Baekhyun agreed, nodding when Chanyeol looked at him. The frown was gone but his ears were red again. This was one endearing pair of ears. Baekhyun didn’t particularly have an ear fetish but he supposed the way fetishes were born in someone was kind of similar to this situation. Except he didn’t really want to fuck those ears with anything, maybe just tug on them to make Chanyeol laugh. He hadn’t heard his laughter clearly yet, they’d laughed a lot back at the club but it had been too loud around for him to properly hear anything.

Chanyeol looked down at the screen for a silent moment.

"Alright then," he said, pursing his lips afterwards. "How does the payment work?"

Tiffany’s smile brightened at the mention of money and she got her receptacle out faster than the time it took to take a breath in. She put the glass square on the counter, typed on the touch screen attached to it, and then turned it towards Chanyeol to show him the amount.

"If you use DNA payment just put your hand on the glass, if you use a code you can type it directly on the glass as well," she explained despite it being the same method of payment for every single establishment in this country. "We take the payment first. To make sure you don’t fuck our boy and then fuck us by running away without paying."

Chanyeol snorted at her explanation. "Is that experience talking?"

Tiffany scrunched her face. "Unfortunately."

Baekhyun watch with appreciation as Chanyeol typed a code on the glass panel. He wasn’t one of those ignorant dumbasses who still used DNA payment.

"What about you, Baekhyun?" Tiffany asked as Chanyeol completed his payment.

"Is Kun available?" he asked as Chanyeol stepped back.

"He sure is," she grinned, typing again on the screen of the receptacle before turning it to him.

Baekhyun completed his payment too while she turned around and consulted the room numbers on the digital wall behind her.

She gave them the numbers and Baekhyun smiled at Chanyeol, gesturing him to head towards the stairs.

"I can’t believe this is happening," Baekhyun couldn’t help but say as they climbed up the stairs, a moan instantly thrown their way from one of the rooms, dramatizing his words.

"Well, actually me neither," Chanyeol said with a little laugh. He didn’t look nervous, didn’t really look stressed either. Maybe the act of buying sex was really the only thing that made him this shy about the situation. Or maybe he was just very happy to be getting a good round of sex and had thrown everything else out the window. Understandable.

"I’m actually surprised this is your first time," Baekhyun couldn’t help but say. "Well, you looked very shy to me almost every time we met but back at the club, you were pretty comfortable and confident even. It makes it a little hard to imagine you having sex, I’m not sure whether you’d be shy or confident."

"You imagine me having sex?" was the first thing Chanyeol asked, whipping his gaze around to Baekhyun and stopping. Baekhyun climbed the last few steps, turned to Chanyeol, and shrugged.

"Occasionally," he admitted. He liked to imagine everyone happily having sex. "I like to imagine people in all kinds of situations."

Chanyeol looked at him for a silent moment and then laughed. He didn’t blush, didn’t stutter, didn’t avoid Baekhyun’s gaze. He looked him right in the eye, tilted his head down to do so. Baekhyun’s dick suddenly was very happy about it.

"I think our rooms are next to each other. Maybe that’ll make it easier for you to imagine me in that situation."

A door on their left opened, Baekhyun didn’t look at it, didn’t feel like straying his gaze away from Chanyeol’s. It was a different gaze. Not really darker, but brighter. Brighter because it was actually looking at Baekhyun, brighter because it was narrowed just the tiniest bit by a smile that showed more in his eyes than it did on his face. Appreciation. It was a bit of an imposing gaze. Baekhyun’s skin showed its appreciation for it by raising into goosebumps.

"Chanyeol?"

Chanyeol looked away from him and at the door, Baekhyun followed his gaze to see Minghao, fully dressed in silky robes. His hair was longer than the last time Baekhyun had seen him, he looked even more angelic and frailer.

"Yes," Chanyeol said, side stepping him to walk to Minghao instead. He was tall but Chanyeol was taller, looked much bigger. It was a very nice image.

"Have fun," Baekhyun called out to him before heading to the his own room and knocking on the door. Of course Kun wouldn’t greet him at the door like most of the others did.

Instead, when the door opened, Kun was already waiting on the bed, naked, skin shining prettily. He really liked to rub oils into it. Edible oils. Baekhyun’s favorite was the strawberry flavored one, it had its scent and looked very beautiful, glittering on the skin.

But all Baekhyun could think about as he approached the bed was the sudden shift Chanyeol had displayed to him. It had been similar to the club. His tone had been much firmer, despite it being a single sentence. It had been suggestive. Grounding. Hot.

"You kept me waiting quite a bit," Kun said, sitting up, crossing his legs as prettily as possible.

He wondered if Chanyeol was the kind to wait for initiative in bed. He would’ve thought so until only a minute ago. But maybe Chanyeol was very initiative in bed. Maybe Chanyeol was shy just when he wasn’t directly in a sexual situation. He hadn’t been shy when he’d texted his favored method of masturbating to Baekhyun, when he’d told him paying for quick sex would be easier for him, when they’d talked about the hand regulator only this morning. It had been a sexual conversation, mildly. For all he knew, Chanyeol could’ve been jacking off while he was typing those messages. It would’ve been difficult but not that much if he used the vocal option of the watch.

Kun grabbed a lapel ofhis jacket and pulled him down on the bed, on top of him. Baekhyun’s crotch pressed against his, he felt the warmth of his skin through the leather of his pants and the scent of fresh flowers caressed his nose. He wondered if Chanyeol had chosen to strike a conversation with Minghao first or if he’d directly dived into the point. Did he liked taking his time? Was he a quickie kind of guy?

Kun said something but Baekhyun heard a noise from the other side of the wall and tuned in on that. He wasn’t sure what it had been exactly. A bump. Was Chanyeol fucking Minghao against the wall? Already? Or maybe it had been the bed bumping against the wall.

He felt lips on his neck and suddenly, he pulled away. He couldn’t do this. Listening to Chanyeol having sex would be better than having sex right now. He couldn’t focus on Kun.

"What’s wrong?" Kun asked, frowning as he sat up. Baekhyun supported himself by putting a hand on his thigh and backing off.

"Nothing," he said, smiling at the other. He didn’t want him to think he’d done something wrong. "I actually think I’d rather just talk to you right now."

Kun remained silent for a moment. "You?" he blurted out then, voice louder than usual, eyebrows raised.

Baekhyun snorted. "What, my dick’s really the only thing you like about me?" he asked, feigning offense by puckering his lips around each word.

"No, it’s just weird that _you_ don’t want to have sex. At any given moment," Kun added with a fast laugh. This was all because Baekhyun had come to seek his service thrice in a day once, in the morning, after lunch, and before midnight. It had been a Very Hard Day, as he liked to call them.

"Sorry to disappoint," Baekhyun said, moving to sit besides him, back to the wall.

"Can’t I even at least suck you off?" Kun asked, hand brushing the rip at Baekhyun’s knee and already reaching for his crotch.

Baekhyun grabbed his hand, patted it, and put it back on Kun’s lap. Very naked lap.

"Nope," he said, laughing when Kun huffed.

He had a libido as high as Baekhyun’s and truly enjoyed his job as a sex worker. This was why he was one of Baekhyun’s favorites. While sex was something fully accepted and even marketed in their society, it wasn’t every day that Baekhyun met a sex worker who was in this field for the pleasure and not the money. Kun was a rare gem.

A rare gem that talked with a very soft and pleasant voice about his weirdest clients. This was why he liked to converse with sex workers, it always made for really fun times full of laughter and mild disgust. Baekhyun was a pretty open minded person but even he found a few kinks borderline disgusting or creepy.

However, it wasn’t exactly Kun’s voice that he was paying attention to. He heard Minghao more than anyone else. Very easily. The Love Shack’s walls were pretty thin. He’d asked Tiffany about it one day, she’d said that it was a marketing strategy. It not only installed some kind of unconscious competition between clients, especially in the male ones, but also made for even more arousing stimulation, pushing people to enjoy their sexual intercourse even more.

So Baekhyun listened. He could mainly hear Minghao but he also knew that he was a really bad faker, if he was simulating, Baekhyun would’ve caught it right away. This wasn’t simulation, all these moans he heard, loud but rare because Minghao wasn’t a non-stop moaner. He barely even moaned, he was more of a deep breaths kinda guy. But he was moaning now, with Chanyeol. Which meant Chanyeol was making him moan. Which meant that Chanyeol was pretty good at fucking. Which meant that Baekhyun was having even more trouble focusing on Kun’s story about that one client who was into fisting herself while the other party just watched. A pretty boring client, from what he’d gathered.

Soon enough, the other side of the wall turned silent and Baekhyun jumped up from the bed. Kun dramatically yelped, acting as if Baekhyun had hurt him since he’d put his leg in-between Baekhyun’s and Baekhyun had been mindlessly caressing his skin, enjoying the smoothness of it. But Chanyeol was done. It had been a while now. He probably must be done.

Once Kun was done being a drama queen, he told Baekhyun to just get out on his own. He was too lazy to put clothes on and would just wait for his next, _much better_ client. With only a teasing snort, Baekhyun left the room and waited in the hallway. He could hear moans but none of them were coming from Chanyeol’s room. He tapped the tip of his foot on the floor, impatient, jittery. Chanyeol being a good fucker was an important piece of information to him. He liked surrounding himself with sex gods and goddesses. It always came in handy. Chanyeol was good at sex _and_ had big hands. Truly a sexual miracle.

He waited, waited, waited, and eventually, the door opened and out came a surprised-looking Chanyeol. A hot-looking Chanyeol. Even more than usual. His hair was a little disheveled, damp at the tips. His clothes were in a much better state since he was wearing a hoodie with various holes but no skin showing no thanks to the undershirt protecting it. His cheeks were flushed, just a faint rosy taint that was almost completely wiped down by the disgusting yellow of the hallway’s lights.

"You’ve been waiting for long?" he asked, holding the door open for Minghao. He had a smile on. Minghao rarely had a smile on. This was his well-fucked smile, the one he always gave Baekhyun at the end of their session.

"Not really," he answered, narrowing his eyes at Minghao for a playful moment before turning his gaze to Chanyeol. "It looks like you fucked him real nice."

Chanyeol’s eyebrows raised for a moment before he laughed, a sound broken by surprise, very faint. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again to speak.

"I mean," he said, glancing at Minghao who smiled at him. That enticing smile of his. "We had fun. Both of us. I think?"

"Oh, we sure did," Minghao confirmed, sliding his hand up from Chanyeol’s wrist to his elbow before wrapping his arm around his. He leaned his head against his shoulder, hair falling before his gaze to add to the mischievousness dripping from his voice. "He’s my new favorite client now."

That meant Baekhyun wasn’t his favorite client anymore. He couldn’t even get himself to be offended or disappointed. That was a vert pleasant statement.

A statement that made Chanyeol laugh a bit too loudly for it to be sincere. He was back. The tall, imposing man was gone and the small, embarrassed boy was back. Once again, Baekhyun had no remorse about it as he watched Chanyeol detangle his arm from Minghao’s.

"Well, I should get going. I have to meet up with a few friends," he said and if Baekhyun didn’t know Chanyeol had a lot of friends, it would’ve sounded like an excuse. "Thank you for tonight," he said, turning to Minghao. Baekhyun’s libido was pricked a little when Chanyeol ruffled his hair. "And thank you for coming here with me. It means a lot and I enjoyed it," he said then, looking at Baekhyun. He was talking softly, slowly, meaningfully, Baekhyun supposed. It made him smile. "I hope to see you soon again."

"I’m glad you enjoyed it," Baekhyun said, just as meaningfully. He was really happy about this.

As soon as Chanyeol was gone, with a grateful touch to Baekhyun’s shoulder as he bypassed him, Baekhyun threw every question he had about Chanyeol’s sexual prowess to Minghao. Claiming professional secrecy, Minghao refused to answer anything _and_ enjoyed the situation too much.

When he even declined Baekhyun’s offer to suck him off for free, answering that he was _a man who only sucked dick now thanks to Chanyeol_ , Baekhyun swore he should’ve recorded that sentence. It would’ve made for really nice audio porn.

Baekhyun turned the photo over, looked at the information printed on the other side. Cinema, shopping mall, VR arcade. He turned the photo back around and studied the youthful, smiling face on the picture. He pushed it back inside the envelope and looked at Kangho.

"This is a kid," he stated, annoyance twitching its head into him when Kangho took a moment to look away from his AI’s very short skirt and at him instead. He wondered if Kangho personally chose their outfit every day.

He wondered how Kangho was still perfectly hyper-focused on them after all the time he’d had them. It had been more than three weeks now since he’d gotten them, maybe even longer than that and Baekhyun was the first person to know about being captivated by someone, he’d had sex with Irene more times than he could count, but these were AIs. Even he found this a little disturbing.

Kangho sniffled, pressing on his nose with the back of his hand, rubbing it upwards. Baekhyun was suddenly very glad that he wasn’t a handshake kind of guy. In fact, he’d never even touched Kangho, at least not in any friendly context. He might have gotten his collar pulled into the angry palm of Kangho’s hand once or twice. Or more. But that was enough, he didn’t need more than that.

"A kid you have to kill, yes," Kangho said, leaning back into his chair. It creaked. This was an expensive chair, chairs didn’t really creak easily. For once in his life, Baekhyun had no desire to know what exactly someone did on their office chair. He at least had an idea with whom it happened. It never creaked before the AIs’ arrival.

"I have to kiss people to kill them," Baekhyun said, tightening the grip he had on the envelope. All he had to do was that. Kiss them. Anything that went beyond that was a decision of his own, not a necessity concerning his duty. But while Baekhyun was mature enough to consider himself way too involved into sex, he was also sane enough to at least have his own rules and limits. No minors. Nothing. Not even kisses.

And Kangho had never even given Baekhyun an underage target. He was doing it on purpose. Baekhyun could see it on the twitch of his eyebrows, on the skin rippling at the corners of his mouth and under his chin. Satisfaction. Pleasure. The girl on the picture couldn’t be older than fifteen.

"And?" he threw back, raising his eyebrows at Baekhyun, reaching to his desk to grab his Vape. He sucked on it and spat out a huge pile of smoke to Baekhyun. He couldn’t even recognize the smell, the flavor. It was pungent. "A kill is a kill."

"I won’t feel comfortable killing a child. Nor kissing her. You know that’s the only thing I don’t want to do," he said, trying his hardest to remain calm. This was his boss. They might have their downs and neutral moments, but this was still his boss. Baekhyun was perfectly aware an employee had no right to make demands or refusals. But he didn’t swipe the streets. He swept lives away.

"And?" Kangho repeated, same word, different tone. Much louder, much more dragged, much more repulsing. He was a greasy ball of repulsion. Nothing else. "I never asked you what you didn’t want to do. I just never gave you this kind of job. Now, I’m giving you this kind of job. If I give you a job, you have to do it. Why? Because you’re basically my bitch, Baekhyun. Except you don’t have to let me fuck you for me to pay you. You just have to do your fucking job."

Baekhyun wasn’t his bitch. Sex workers weren’t bitches. Baekhyun could bear being called a bitch, this was his job, this was what gave him money, no matter how terrible it was. But he had never been called a bitch before, certainly not by Kangho. And sex workers weren’t bitches, weren’t whores, weren’t holes you just had to shove money in to make moan. No one had the right to treat, speak of sex workers this way. Not many people worked as hard as them under such difficult conditions.  
  
He hated this. The disrespect. To people who worked hard every day, some of them despite feeling like death at the end of each day, some of them because they truly enjoyed their occupation, some of them despite being harassed, abused, and treated like whores.

"I don’t have to," Baekhyun said, voice seething behind his teeth, anger crashing right through the barrier. He didn’t try holding it back. Not this time. "I don’t have to have to work for a whiny bitch like you, Kangho."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Baekhyun heard the switching on of eight different Blasters, all at once, in a single wheeze mimicking that of a bloodied, dying man. He didn’t have to look at any of the AIs to know they were pointing their weapons at him. They were soldiers, guard dogs customized to protect this scum at the first sign of a threat.

"What?" was all Kangho could say behind another storm of smelly fog. He leaned forward, folded his arms on the desk. Baekhyun didn’t avert his gaze, didn’t unclench his jaw, didn’t stop himself, didn’t repress anything. Didn’t tell himself that this was a habit, a tradition, his life.

Kangho had been acting like Baekhyun owed him his life for so long. Like Baekhyun’s life belonged to him. Like Baekhyun’s body belonged to him. It didn’t. No part of him belonged to Kangho. This was his life, his body, his weapon, and he would do whatever he wanted to with it.

It felt dirty. All these years. Kissing people to kill them, using his body. It made him feel repulsive. Like there was acid on his skin, like there was blood on his skin despite his not leaving a single wound on his victims. It made him want to skin himself off.

"I’m stopping this right here," he said, slamming his hand down on the table. The slap was so harsh, the envelope didn’t even scream a crumble under his palm. No one in the room flinched. Kangho’s expression darkened, lines fissuring his forehead like lightnings slashing through a wide sky.

It would fall on Baekhyun’s head. It would crumble on top of him. He couldn’t hide from this, he couldn’t run from this. Because Baekhyun’s only weapon was his lips and he’d rather have holes blasted through him than kill this man and his own dignity at the same time. And if Baekhyun didn’t kill Kangho, Kangho would kill him. If Baekhyun killed Kangho, he would still be killed by his army.

There was nothing Baekhyun could do besides relying on chance. So Baekhyun thought, thought about what he should do to get out of here alive, thought while he could see the storm on Kangho’s face gradually push itself into a snapping point.

But the thunder never came with the lightning.

It came separated from the lightning but loud, boisterous, deafening.

It came with a first shot. One shot. But not just one. It was several shots, all pulled into a single thunderous sound, mechanical and artificial but nonetheless fatal.

Not for him.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello?? it might come as a surprise but I actually didn't forget this story lqskdnjsfkn I just got hit by a lot of things at school and work and much stress (and well also quarantine made me lose motivation) but we out here surviving! and it's all going good now!! so I'm picking this up again I started writing it and I should update this pretty regularly hehe

He turned around. Nothing shattered on his head. It had punctured holes through Kangho. Holes, blood, a lot of blood, flowing, death. Baekhyun’s gaze pierced through every single AI in the room, he looked at them, watched them, tension pulling his entire body to all sides. He had no idea what had just happened. He really had no idea what had just happened, why they hadn’t killed him, why they’d killed the very guy who commanded them, who’d gotten them built.

They still had the same frozen smile on, they still had the same too short, too revealing, too crude clothes on. They were still pointing their guns to Kangho’s head. Because it was just the head. Holes on his head, so many of them that it did not look like Kangho anymore, it barely even looked like a head. But they still looked like normal AI’s.

What was it? Baekhyun couldn’t move, couldn’t shift a single one of his muscles. What was it? Fear stuck him in place, the shots hadn’t went through him but the horror had sawn itself on his limbs, had sawn his limbs on the same exact spot he always stood in whenever Kangho insulted him and he had the urge to get out, go home, get away. 

He had no idea what had just happened. But it wasn’t just fear. It was amazement. He had never seen AI’s shoot anyone, had known that there were entire armies of them, but had never seen it happen with his own eyes. And yet ten of them, a tiny army, had just shot their general instead of shooting the threat that presented itself to him. 

Adrenaline. His heart was beating too fast, way too fast, not fast enough to jump him right out of this room. There was not a single sound. Not a single breath besides Baekhyun’s in a room full of ten artificial humans and one dead man. No one moved. Baekhyun was the only being that carried life in the room and he still did not move.

He did not move and the thunder snapped again. Just as ordered, just as organized, just as unified. Just as lethal.  
  
It did not snap on his head. Not this time either.

But this time, Baekhyun flinched.

In a single snap, in a single mechanical push, all the AIs around him turned to one another, pulled the trigger and cluttered on the ground, the sound of metal clashing muted by the synthetic skin that hid it.

This time, Baekhyun felt the adrenaline devoured by the fright. This time, Baekhyun felt a painful pull in his stomach. Danger. This was danger. This wasn’t just a malfunctioning. This wasn’t just a glitch. This wasn’t just a mishap in the creation of perfect replicas of human beings, _better_ replicas of human beings. Because Artificial Intelligence was better than humans and it was inconceivable for an error to send them into a murder spree. It was impossible for them to act on their own free will. They had no free will.

Baekhyun stepped to the nearest AI’s. Examined. Stepped back when he thought he heard a sound, saw a flinch. There was nothing. He walked to the AI lying only a few steps away from that one, just to be sure. Examined. Leaned down. Examined. An unclean hole, a rip through the head again, right where the Brain was, the mechanism that kept the machine alive. He glanced around him. It was on the same spot for every single replica. Always on the same spot, faultlessly.

He squatted down next to the AI. It wasn’t a corpse. A corpse designated something that was once alive. There had never been life in these. Just intelligence. A huge amount of knowledge. He should leave. He should definitely leave. No one would even come to check up on them, shootings weren’t a rare occurence in this building. The only difference was that Kangho usually planned them.

He leaned closer. He knew nothing about AIs. He looked into the eternally blank eyes of the machine, looked at the eternally frightening smile on her face. She let out a mechanical beep and Baekhyun jumped back, foot sliding off the floor and body crashing back, barely held up by his hands. Another beep. Next to him. Another beep. Behind him. All around him. But it wasn’t a weapon, it wasn’t danger. Baekhyun’s eyes were frozen into the AI’s face as he watched a screen lowly lowering itself over her face. Glitchy, buggy. It wasn’t smooth and didn’t descend the whole way down to her chin like it should.

But it was a screen. Ten screens. Ten screens around him and all of them displayed an orange dot that got bigger, bigger, bigger until it transformed into a cat strutting towards Baekhyun, as if it wasn’t a screen between them but a window. It pawed at it. All around Baekhyun.

He jumped up, ran to the door, opened it without glancing behind him once, left it open as he fled the room. He controlled his steps. If he acted in too much of a rush, he would be suspicious. He took the elevator like he usually would, waited for it as much as he usually would, got out of it with as much slowness as he usually would.

But there was no one to suspect Baekhyun around.

There was no one in the lobby, no one at the welcome desk. No one alive. Just people with holes in their bodies.

The doors parted for Baekhyun and as soon as the fresh air hit his face, it came with a stifling heaviness.

The weight of the people protesting outside.

_Destruction of the New Gods._

Marching.

_Blessing of the New Gods._

Screaming their lungs out.

_Abominations._

Stale-colored rain coats.

_Relief._

The stomping of angry feet.

_Insane worshippers of the Devils._

The yelling of overpowering voices.

_Insane worshippers of a dead God._

The rain. The cars above. Honking, flying, too close, too near, too fast. The rumbling of a storm created by men. The color of the sky. Purple, saturated, artificial, anxious.

The weight of the sky barely holding itself up above Baekhyun. The suffocation of the air barely finding room to move around freely, parted in two distinct sides that crashed into each other with war cries. Banners were thrown around, voices were used as weapons but scarce against hits and kicks and sticks.

He turned away from it all, tilted his head down, baring it even more to the sky while trying to protect it, and headed somewhere else, somewhere better. He needed to get his dick blowed. That was the only thing that would help him get a hang of his own head. All he could visualize were holes, bloody holes, holes piercing through metal and synthetic skin.

And all he could hear was chants, chatters, arguments, footsteps. A holo-ad jumped in front of him, promoting a new pornographic channel to him. Baekhyun side stepped it, quickened his steps, pressed his lips together as the woman followed him, still speaking behind him about ecstasy and masturbation and things Baekhyun didn’t want to hear about, things Baekhyun would rather feel at this exact moment.

He shoved himself into the dense crowd, zigzagged, clenched his jaw at people screaming into his ears, about the New Gods who came to save them, about the New Gods who’d disrupt the balance on earth and lead humanity to its doom. When he slithered out of the crowd, arms irritated from all the contact and accidental bumps they had survived through, the holo-ad wasn’t following him anymore. He didn’t turn around to check, he just couldn’t hear her sensual voice anymore. Instead, Baekhyun could hear a single voice projected through the entire avenue, from a mouth hanging above him.

The news anchor on the Ultra had a grave look on her face. Baekhyun wasn’t positioned in the best spot to see the screens, he could see the corner between two of the screens, the line where they came together and he could see two screens out of four, the replica of the same image without it being any clearer. But the gravity of the situation was clear. He couldn’t hear her properly. People were fighting behind.

_"Ministry of Scientifical Progress gave us…"_ Where was the police? He had no idea. _"Two Gods, much more different than…"_ He had no idea if they would even come down to break the protests. It was too loud. _"Ancient Religions…"_ It was way too loud and he could barely associate the few words he heard to the mouth pronouncing them above him. It was way too loud, he feared that mouth would rip down along the sky to engulf him whole. _"The New Gods…"_ His head was pounding, he could feel each beat of his heart slamming against his temples. _"Technology and Mass Media…"_

Baekhyun turned around, a man screamed at him when he almost ran right into him. He ignored it. He ignored it because his curses weren’t as suffocating as the need to get out of here. He ignored it and bumped into as many people as he could while getting out of the mob. Just because he could. Just because he was exhausted and what was a little more chaos in a world built upon that very concept?

The only place where there was no chaos was the Love Shack. When Baekhyun stood in front of it a short moment later, he already felt grounded. And ready to get blowed.

"Welcome back," Tiffany greeted him with as soon as he pushed the door open, still standing behind her counter, still looking every part of the cheery business woman she was most of the time.

"Who’s available?" he asked, foregoing any greeting. He didn’t have time for that. He just wanted to quickly go home after this.

"Having a bad day, I see," Tiffany immediately understood, perks of being a regular for the past few years, he supposed. "We currently only have Minghao, Jessica, and Sana."

"Minghao then, please," he quickly decided, not thinking much about it.

Once the payment was accepted, she gave him the room number and gestured towards the stairs. Baekhyun headed up and soon enough, at the very end of the corridor, a door opened into Minghao’s tall form. Cutting his greeting off, Baekhyun grabbed him by the waist and pressed his lips by the side of his neck, where he knew Minghao was sensitive. He pushed forward, making him step back and engulf into the room as the door closed behind them.

"Would you blow me, please?" he asked, words eaten by the smoothness of Minghao’s skin. His skin was always cottony, always so nice to the touch, against his palm, against his lips. Baekhyun didn’t really like using his lips, didn’t really like kissing even just skin. He found it a little useless if it didn’t start with a kiss on the lips first.

But he liked Minghao’s skin. He liked Minghao because despite them knowing each other, there wasn’t always a need for them to converse and catch up like old friends. Minghao was quick and efficient, pushed Baekhyun back until he sat down on the bed and then dropped on his knees, hands already unbuttoning Baekhyun’s pants. That gesture alone sent a wave of relief through him, until it petered out into arousal, a quick feeling that enlivened with the pull of his underwear down by Minghao’s fingers.

Baekhyun closed his eyes when he wrapped his cold fingers around his cock. His fingers were always cold, the only part of his body that was constantly cold. Minghao had once said that it annoyed some clients but Baekhyun liked it, he liked the contrast with the warmth of his own skin, the heat of the sensation, the burn of Minghao’s mouth when it took the tip in and sucked on it, with a tiny sound.

Once Baekhyun was hard enough for Minghao to properly do his job, he put a hand on his thigh, the other still securely wrapped around the base of his cock, now warming it up a little. The only cold Baekhyun felt was the skin purposefully left untouched, that area between Minghao’s mouth and his fist. The only sensation overwhelming Baekhyun was the pleasure, creeping into him, pushed into him with every flick of Minghao’s tongue against his skin, sweltering and wet and downy and aware of the jolt of euphoria it could send right into Baekhyun’s stomach by pressing right on the underside of the tip.

Then he felt vibrations, strong around his wrist, faint around his cock when Minghao hummed, probably having heard the sound. Baekhyun opened his eyes, stared at the redness of Minghao’s lips around him, a pretty flush, an appealing softness to the skin. He parted his legs wider, slid down just alittle, just a little closer to Minghao, pulled hand up from where it supported him behind, dug into the mattress. He cupped Minghao’s cheek, parted his lips with a deep exhale when Minghao turned his head until Baekhyun could feel himself gently bumping against the inside of his cheek, creamy flesh that felt harder than his lips at the same time. He turned his head a little more, until Baekhyun could feel the bump against his palm too. He laughed, a breathy sound that made Minghao’s eyes smile at him.

Baekhyun looked down at his lips again, Minghao stopped moving, head still slanted a little, a bump still visible on his cheek. Baekhyun rubbed his thumb against it, circling the smoothness of the faint protuberance. He couldn’t really feel the touch on his cock, but it was nice nonetheless. Hot. To be able to almost touch himself through Minghao’s cheek. Then, he trailed his fingers down, touched a corners of Minghao’s lips, right where the skin was swollen, the lip pushed down, reddish skin disappearing into glistening flesh with Baekhyun’s cock’s weight pulling it down.

Minghao pulled away then, properly straightening Baekhyun’s cock in his mouth, dragging his lips up and down along its length, slowly, pleasurably, enough for Baekhyun to pull his hand away from his face and support his body again, digging his fist behind him, on the mattress. He closed his eyes, listened to the tiny sounds Minghao made, each of them. Then opened his eyes again when he remembered his watch had vibrated. Minghao deep throated him at the same time as Baekhyun saw Chanyeol’s name on the screen and he let out a moan at the pleasant sensation of constriction and shrouding his cock, amplifying the pleasure, the heat tickling his body in all places.

**[Chanyeol]**

_[hey]_

_[how you doing?]_

Baekhyun looked away from his screen when Minghao pulled him out of his mouth, only to rub the tip of his cock against his lower lip, slowly, gently, cheeks flushed, eyes staring right into Baekhyun’s every time Baekhyun’s gaze jumped up and down from his eyes to his lips. He typed his reply when Minghao started jacking him off with his hand, his breath chopped but his strokes smoothed out by his own saliva.

[I’m at the Love Shakc]

He tapped send the moment Minghao took him into his mouth again, hand strokingat the base of his cock in rhythm with the bop of his head. His wrist vibrated again and Baekhyun craved vibrations on his cock. He should use his toys more often. it had been a while since the last time he hadn’t only relied on his own hand. Because of Chanyeol.

_[you mean right now??]_

_[oh sorry I won’t disturb you then]_

Cute. How cute. So cute Minghao had to graze his teeth against his cock just the slightest bit for Baekhyun to look back at him. he raised an eyebrow at the other’s need for attention, reached to pinch his nose, cutting off his breath. It made for a funny sight, Minghao sucking him off while Baekhyun was pinching his nose. It made for an arousing sight when Minghao started humming, choking just a little bit, his hand squeezing Baekhyun thigh. It heated up his stomach, boiled up the bliss, made it difficult to focus on anything else. He let go of his nose before it could turn dangerous and watched with satisfaction as Minghao choked on his cock, pulling away, a string of saliva tying him to Baekhyun.

He typed his reply.

[It’s alright]

[I can get my dick sucked and talk to you at the sam time]

[I can multitask]

The reply came instantly, distracting Baekhyun from Minghao continuing his job.

_[you’re getting blown?]_

_[lucky]_

Baekhyun typed his reply, erased it when it came out with too much typos, and typed it again.

[You should come]

[I’m with Minghao]

Knowing that he was fucking a mouth Chanyeol had already fucked shouldn’t make this even better. But it did.

_[Minghao’s really good at blow jobs…]_

_[but I can’t I have work to do :(]_

Baekhyun knew, if Chanyeol typed in all lowercase, it meant that he was using the desktop version of the Instant Messaging app.

[Yo’re missing out]

[As a blow job expert, I can comfirm yo you that he is indeed very good at his job]

So good Baekhyun reached to run a hand through Minghao’s hair in appreciation before clenching a few strands in his hand and guiding him to move at a faster pace. He threw his head back, parted his lips. It felt even better when he closed his eyes and there was nothing to distract him. He could feel the drag of Minghao’s tongue against his skin, could feel every single succion, could hear the choked sounds, the hums. He opened his eyes at a vibration, saw Minghao sliding his hand down from Baekhyun’s thigh, down to his own lap. Baekhyun couldn’t see what he was doing with it, he didn’t need to in order to know.

He let go of Minghao’s hair but the other kept the pace, his other arm moving too, stroking himself. He was getting off on this. It made it better.

_[so you’re a blowjob expert?]_

Baekhyun didn’t know how that sounded. Mocking or disbelieving or curious or just neutral.

[You don’t belive me?]

_[that’s not something I can just believe without checking it myself]_

Did that mean he wanted to check? How did he want to check? How had he understood that? Baekhyun was indeed a very good blowjob giver too? Was that what Chanyeol wanted to check?

[I won’t argue about it when directly proving it is much more efficient]

_[proof would be appreciated]_

_[but for now, just enjoy getting your dick sucked in my stead]_

Baekhyun had never come so abruptly in his life before.

The day after, Baekhyun realized what had just happened.

Every single person present at the building while he’d met with Kangho was shot. Including all the AIs. They’d been the ones to shoot everyone before shooting each other. It was mass murder. Every single criminal, twisted person in that building - gone. All of them. Including Kangho. Baekhyun had no one to give him targets anymore, Baekhyun had no one to provide him with money anymore. Baekhyun had witnessed one of the biggest shootings of the year. And he’d been the only survivor.

Why? Why hadn’t he be killed too? He was a person too, a human being, a criminal even. He’d taken so many lives, he’d ruined so many lives just like every single person present in that building. But he hadn’t been killed.

In the morning, he woke up to a clench in his chest. Strong, hard, constricting, enough for it to feel like he was tied to his own bed, like it’d become a hole he was endlessly falling in. Baekhyun wasn’t used to feeling like he was falling. He was used to feeling like something was about to fall on top of him and crush the life out of him.

He jumped out of bed, stretched his body enough for his back to hurt once he straightened up again. It didn’t snap apart the knots of anxiety taking too much room in his stomach. He could still feel their weight with every breath, could still feel how full yet empty it made his stomach feel, how fast his heart worried about it.

He splashed cold water on his face in the bathroom, gulped down half a bottle of cold water in the kitchen, grabbed a pack of chips, and headed to the living room. He ate half of the pack in complete silence before getting up to go to the bathroom and take a piss. He washed his hands, looked at the black of his hair, the black shadowing his skin without being visible, and decided to take a shower. Once he came back, a towel rubbing at his hair, he plopped down on the couch again and turned the television on. He watched the news for a moment, intrigued by the panic on the news anchor’s face.

Her tone was grave, her body stiff, and her eyes wide. He read the headline on the bottom. _NSOCIETY video accuses the government of manipulation through the New Gods._ His gaze jolted back up to her face when a word caught his attention.

_"The video was released on an anonymous channel on the Internet this morning, stirring up the entire population of Systia but particularly the streets of the capital, Noxis, as every single screen in the city was hacked for this video to be broadcast."_ Not a single one of her features moved while she spoke, not a single hair strand. She looked terrified. _"In the video, nothing but a computer-generated cat speaking to us can be see, as it makes dangerous and direct claims about the Government and its relation to the sudden apparition of New Gods. Let’s take a look."_

She blinked once and the screen switched to a blank, black font. Baekhyun leaned forward, supporting his elbow on his knees as he watched the screen, lacing his fingers together. When an orange dot appeared in the center, then grew, grew, grew into a pop that turned into a cat, Baekhyun’s entire body immobilized. Except his heart. He couldn’t feel anxious knots anywhere in his body, just the sharp pounding of his heart through every single one of his limbs.

It was the same cat he’s seen on the AIs’ screens yesterday. Except it was a different version of it, a hatted cat standing on its feet, holding a cane in its paw, adorning glasses, curved whiskers, and round glasses.

Then, it started speaking.

_"Fellow, citizens of Systia,"_ it said and it wasn’t a human voice, it was a high, mechanic voice that Baekhyun could’ve heard in any cartoon on television. _"Wear your glasses,"_ it continued, pushing its own glasses up with its paw. _"Don’t be blind to the Government’s manipulative schemes. Yes. You heard it right. Manipulation."_ It leaned forward, closer to Baekhyun, closer to the audience. _"New Gods? That you haven’t seen even once? Really? Do Gods obey to humans now? Do Gods stay hidden if the MSP kindly asks them to? Or is it the MSP hiding them to perfect their plan?"_

It leaned back again, shaking its head. Baekhyun listened attentively, not a single sound escaping him. He didn’t understand. He did. He wasn’t sure he fully understood.

_"Wake up!"_ the cat suddenly shouted, waving at him with its cane. _"You’re scared, aren’t you? You, watching me from your bed, your couch, the crowd on First Avenue. You’re scared of the New Gods so you either fight against them, ignore them, or you’ve already started praying to them."_ Baekhyun gulped. The protests. Destruction of the New Gods. The worship of the New Gods. Ignorance. He preferred ignoring it all. _"That’s what the Government wants. That’s why the Government created the New Gods."_ Created. _"To install fear. The New Gods aren’t going to save you from the chaos. The Government is going to compress the chaos into fear and obedience."_

A huge sound resonated in his entire apartment when the cat slammed its cane down on the ground. Baekhyun didn’t flinch. He couldn’t even flinch.

_"Wake up!"_ it repeated. _"Stand up. Square up. Get out and fight the manipulation. Join the crowd, join us and fight against the Government’s use of Gods to oppress you, fight for a New Society."_ The cat pointed at him with the tip of its cane, a sharp movement, a frown, a gravity. _"NSOCIETY needs you."_

Baekhyun switched the television off and dropped the remote on the couch, beside him. Hackers. This made sense. That was why the AIs had turned murderous. That had been their doing. But why? Why had they killed every single person in that building? What did Kangho have to do with NSOCIETY’S propaganda against the New Gods? Why hadn’t they killed off Baekhyun too? They’d seen him there, they’d probably been able to see him through the eyes of the AIs. Why had they left him alive?

Their claims barely made sense. It was clear yet vague. They accused yet didn’t bring full explanations as to what they truly accused the Government of. This was just a calling. They were calling people to the streets, to protest. They were asking for chaos. Were the protests their doings? Or were they just riding on the movement?

He pressed the palms of his hands against his closed eyes, let out a loud sigh. He didn’t want to think about this. He didn’t like this. This was too much change. This was too out of his normal life. He didn’t like this, he didn’t like habits being taken away from him. He’d obeyed to Kangho for four years, since he was sixteen, he’d put up with everything for so long because he didn’t want to change anything, was _scared_ to change anything, just for everything to suddenly disappear into shambles in a single day.

Was it a single day even? Or had the announcement of the New Gods triggered everything?  
  
He didn’t want to think about this. He didn’t want to think about it at all.

So Baekhyun didn’t think about it and did what he enjoyed the most, what made him feel like himself the most. He turned the television on again, switched the channel to a pornographic one, at random, and watched a man fucking his AI maid on the floor of the bedroom while a woman, certainly his wife, slept on the bed only a few centimeters away.

It was scripted, not homemade, but he watched it for a moment and felt the familiar, grounding sensation of his body and mind waking up, arising into sensibility. Arousal.

But he was stressed out, couldn’t fully focus on it, zoned out from time to time. He didn’t look away still, because this was comforting, until a notification popped up at the corner of his television screen, his watch vibrated, and his computer pinged behind him all at once. A message from Startrack. Baekhyun only saw the usual _darling_ before he looked back at where the man was eagerly licking the AI’s breasts. He didn’t want to talk to Startrack. He didn’t want to play Nebula either, his brain wasn’t available for that right now.

After a moment, the porn turned boring and Baekhyun turned to his computer instead. He browsed the web for a little while, logged off everything when he saw that all people were talking about was NSOCIETY and the New Gods. He stared at the starry, clear sky on the background of his computer. He covered it by opened up his browser and typing _nsociety cat_ on the search bar. Maybe the Kangho shooting and the NSOCIETY video had nothing in common. Cats were very well loved animals, one of the few species that were still not extinct, it could’ve been the logo or mascot of just anyone, several people or organizations at once, even. All he could find were screenshots of the video, interviews, news extracts, people siding with NSOCIETY, people demonizing them. There was not a single image of the same exact cat he’d seen on the AIs’ screens.

That could mean it wasn’t the same organization. That could also not mean anything at all. That definitely meant Baekhyun should stop worrying about this.

He stood up, found a random movie to watch on the television, finished his pack of chips. He jacked off and got the saddest, lamest orgasm out of it. He ate an apple and then canned cherry tomatoes. He opened up the news for a few seconds, let his leg jitter for the entire time he spent switching between every single channel he had available.

He threw the remote on the table in front of him. He needed a distraction. He needed someone. But he didn’t want to get out of his home, didn’t want to see the wars unfolding in the streets. He needed someone. The Love Shack didn’t prevent home service, Tiffany wouldn’t send anyone over despite Baekhyun being her regular client for over two years. He needed someone.

Looking down at his P-watch, he bit his lower lip. He opened his messaging logs. The last name he’d interacted with was Chanyeol. He chewed on his own skin, contemplating. Chanyeol wasn’t a target anymore. He took a deep breath in. His leg stopped jittering, he flopped on his couch, laying down. He wasn’t someone Baekhyun had to kill anymore. He didn’t even remember thinking of him as someone he had to kill. That was how far that period seemed, even if he’d been Baekhyun’s target until only yesterday.

But Baekhyun had no more targets. He had no more job, no more income. His life had lost so many of its regular aspects. He rubbed a hand over his face, up and down his nose, tugging, pulling. Then, he typed his message. Simple. Direct. He had no time for turning around the pot. He needed someone.

**[Chanyeol]**

[Hey can we meet?]

He dropped his hand on his stomach, closed his eyes, opened them only when he felt vibrations a short moment later. Chanyeol always replied so fast. Even faster than Startrack usually did.

_[Sure!]_

_[Everyone cancelled on me today so I was a little sad :(]_

_[But you might save my day]_

Baekhyun smiled. Save the day. Usually he didn’t save anything, he took things away, ended things, ruined things. Lives. But saving Chanyeol’s day didn’t sound bad. Chanyeol saving his day didn’t sound bad at all.

[You could save mine too if you come over]

_[To your house?]_

Baekhyun frowned. Was that a wrong invitation? Didn’t they know each other enough? It was just a house. Baekhyun didn’t need to know Chanyeol’s favorite dish and color to allow him into his house.

[If you want to, of course]

He hoped he would. Because there was no way Baekhyun was going to get out of his house today.

_[Sure! Just send me the address, I’ll finish up a few things and then meet you there in an hour?]_

Baekhyun sent him the address and sat up. He was a little happier now. His brain was a little happier. But not his dick. He had an hour. He wouldn’t be able to do much in that timespan.

So he watched better porn instead. He grabbed his Seeker and played with it. He liked it, he liked how it adjusted the direction of the thrusts to find the right spot inside of him on its own. The orgasm was much better and took the edge off.

When the door rang, Baekhyun was just a little less stressed, but still as jittery. He hadn’t seen Chanyeol in a while. He had also forgotten, until a few minutes ago, that the last conversation they’d shared had been about blowjobs. About Baekhyun being a blowjob expert. About Chanyeol having to check up on that. He still had no clue as to what the other had meant by that. It didn’t matter.

He opened the door and his lips smiled for him at the sight of a Chanyeol with damp hair, the lenses of his glasses stained by water drops here and there, his mouth a now familiar curve of pleasance. He was holding out a plastic bag to Baekhyun.

"Brought you this," were the first words he said to Baekhyun. His voice was just as deep, just as calm as usual. Baekhyun didn’t know why hearing it had sounded so pleasant now. Maybe because it was the only voice he’d heard of the day, the only nice voice. Not the voice of a news channel, panicked or accusing, not the voice of a bad porn star. A real voice. "I didn’t want to come empty handed to your house."

"Thanks, you didn’t have to," Baekhyun said, taking the bag from him and stepping back for Chanyeol to come in. While he toed his shoes off to wear the slippers Baekhyun had put at the door half an hour ago, Baekhyun looked inside the bag curiously. "Drinks?" he asked, looking up at Chanyeol who squinted at him, eyes bare while he wiped his glasses with the pocket of hishoodie.

Baekhyun saw just astripe of skin. Then Chanyeol’s voice called back for his attention, catching him before he could drift away.

"I didn’t really know what you liked," Chanyeol said, putting his glasses back on and shaking his head once for his hair to settle properly over his forehead inside of under the lenses. "I just know you liked the cocktail that time at the club so I grabbed something similar. There’s a little bit more alcohol in this but it still tastes like strawberries."

Baekhyun huffed a laugh out of his nose, lips remaining pressed together. This was sweet. As sweet as the drink he’d tasted for the first time with Chanyeol. Or perhaps Chanyeol was sweeter, sweeter than that drink. He was sweeter than anyone else Baekhyun had ever met, for sure.

He quickly realized that they’d perhaps been standing in the hallway for too long, asked Chanyeol to follow him into the living room. He took Chanyeol’s jacket, hung it on the back of the couch, and put the bag on the table. He told Chanyeol to settle in or look around while he went to the kitchen to grab two glasses.

It was weird, having someone over in his house. It didn’t really happen. Not in this context, at least. Chanyeol wasn’t a prostitute he’d picked off the streets, Baekhyun wouldn’t fuck him and then order take out to give him along with the money. Instead, Baekhyun would perhaps eat lunch with Chanyeol and sit down and do whatever normal people did to spend some time together.

When he came back, Chanyeol was standing in front of the television, it had probably switched on when he stood in front of it and Baekhyun was almost disappointed that it was a news channel that he’d last glimpsed at instead of porn. He wondered what Chanyeol’s reaction would’ve been, would he have turned the television off immediately or would he have discussed with Baekhyun what his kind of porn was. That was an interesting subject. They should discuss that someday.

Chanyeol switched the channel when he saw him arriving, ending up on a cheesy daytime series. Baekhyun was relieved. He thought they’d have to talk about what was happening outside. He didn’t want to talk about what was happening outside, nor think about it. He only wanted a distraction. Chanyeol was a distraction and already more than that, an enjoyment. A really appreciable sight. Tall in front of Baekhyun but small in the width of his living room. Baekhyun had never found it too big but he liked having someone in it, so far.

"I’m just looking through the channels," he said, switching it again as Baekhyun put the glasses down on the table. "It just switched on when I stood in front of it so I thought I might as well change the channel. Sorry for not asking first."

He didn’t really look sorry, it was just a polite formulation and Baekhyun didn’t mind, wasn’t surprised either. This was Chanyeol. He was starting to know him, just a tiny bit.

"It’s alright, you can just switch as many times as you want," he said, plopping down on the couch and gesturing Chanyeol to come sit too. "I have tones of channels, I’m sure we’ll find something to watch," he bragged because if there was something he was proud of, it was his many channels. Even if he kept jumping between the same ten ones.

Chanyeol sat down next to him with a sigh. "Lucky. I don’t even have time to watch my series nowadays."

Baekhyun looked at him, tilting his head. "You do seem busy." And knowing how enthusiastic Chanyeol was about television from the Old Age, it was a surprise to hear that. He still didn’t know what Chanyeol worked as.

"It’s all because of work," he said, scrunching his nose, looking away from the screen to the glasses instead.

"I don’t really have proper alcohol glasses so I hope you don’t mind drinking it in normal glasses," he said, feeling a little stupid now. He’d never have to worry about glasses before, the only alcohol he consumed was beer and that came in cans or bottles already.

"I don’t mind at all!" Chanyeol assured him, putting the remote on the couch between them and reaching for one of the bottles instead. "I’ll pour it for us."

Baekhyun watched him decapsulate the bottle and then pour it into a glass, paying close attention to his hands. They looked nice against the light hue of the drink.

"It’s even pinker than the drink at the club," he commented, looking at the soft fizzle in the glass with wonder. It even smelled like strawberries, not an artificial scent like some candies had, but a really appetizing, fresh kind of aroma.

"I hope you’ll like it just as much," Chanyeol smiled, glancing at him, the stain on the right lens of his glasses not hiding how pretty his gaze was. It was an interesting contrast to how deep and imposing his voice sounded. Baekhyun liked all these contrasts.  
  
It was because of them that he couldn’t refuse the glass when Chanyeol pushed it in front of him on the table.

"I liked your recommendation back then so I’m sure I’ll like this one too," he said, grabbing the glass.

He shouldn’t. Chanyeol had said there was more alcohol in this than that drink at Etincelle. He really shouldn’t drink, he never did. But it would’ve been weird to just put the bottles in the kitchen and not drink it with Chanyeol. It would be weird to offer Chanyeol to drink it alone. Just a sip should be okay. A few sips. With long breaks in-between.

But with Chanyeol looking at him so attentively, with so much anticipation in the way he focused on Baekhyun, silent, staring, waiting, Baekhyun thought he should at least pretend to like the drink and finish a glass. He looked down at the glass as he brought it up, looked at the pink, and closed his eyes as he took his first sip.

It was fuzzy in his mouth, tingling his tongue but ever so slightly, enough for it to feel energizing but not striking. The strawberry taste was prominent but not overwhelming, it was delicate but as fresh as the scent. Strawberries but with a hint of something Baekhyun couldn’t make out, something that blended perfectly with the fruitiness of the drink.

He hummed while taking a second, bigger sip. "It tastes really great," he said, raising his eyebrows at Chanyeol. He hadn’t expected to like it, he wasn’t that much of an alcohol person and he never really had any regrets or longings about it.

But when he saw Chanyeol’s face lighting up, his features all raising at once into an expression of curses and smiles, Baekhyun regretted maybe just a little bit. It was a handsome expression.

"I’m really glad then," Chanyeol mumbled against the rim of his own glass. "I should’ve bought more."

"On your next visit," Baekhyun said, putting the glass down, holding it on his lap. Chanyeol just looked so nice on his couch. Bigger than the couch. His long legs fit just right against the table, maybe fitted too right, too narrowly. Baekhyun’s shorter legs fitted perfectly. Nice.

"On my next visit," he repeated and it wasn’t really a promise, Baekhyun supposed, but it was still great to hear that. Great to think that he wouldn’t mind a repeat of this even if they’d only been here for a few minutes. Chanyeol took a sip of the drink, hummed, and perked up. "Did I tell you about Saehee and Junho, by the way?"

Baekhyun furrowed his eyebrows. "Who’s that?"

"The guy who kept coming at me to whine about how he didn’t know if a girl liked him back at the club," Chanyeol explained, laughing a little.

"What about them?" Baekhyun asked, now recalling that situation. It had been a little sad, mostly cute. Junho had been borderline drunk and very gloomy about being too scared to ask her out directly.

Baekhyun took a sip of his drink, unable to stop himself. It tasted too sweet, too attractive. A bit like Chanyeol. How Chanyeol looked at least, Baekhyun didn’t know how he tasted yet. Not yet. Baekhyun shouldn’t think about putting a yet there. Not right now.

"They’re still not together," Chanyeol deadpanned, shaking his head. Baekhyun let out a disappointed sound. "I know right? I’m really trying my hardest to put them together but despite all my efforts, they both act like idiots."

Baekhyun chortled at the frustrated frown scrunching up Chanyeol’s forehead. His eyes smiled at Baekhyun over the rim of his glass. Baekhyun smiled back at him over the rim of his.

"But why though? Actually does Saehee even like him back?"

"We don’t know!" His eyes had widened in exasperation. "Actually I asked her. I messaged her the other day after Junho whined at me for ten whole minutes and I asked her how she was doing and then directly asked her what she thought about Junho." He stopped to snort, eyes closing for a moment. Baekhyun smiled, took another sip. "She told me she was amazed by how someone could drink so much yet still look like a sad puppy."

Baekhyun snorted, the drink fizzing in his mouth. He couldn’t say he wasn’t amazed by the same exact thing. But he was mostly amazed by how endearing Chanyeol looked while talking about this, giving Baekhyun an update on something random but that seemed to matter to him this much.

"But didn’t you talk to her about Junho before the party? I think you told me something like that?" he asked, even if he was pretty sure it had happened. He remembered most of that night very vividly.

"I did!" Chanyeol confirmed, hand grabbing the remote again. Baekhyun nodded when he looked at him, indicating him that he could continue switching channels if he wanted to. "But she keeps avoiding the subject. It’s getting kinda ridiculous. I’m even starting to feel bad because Junho’s really into her but I think she isn’t. Or she’s scared. Or something."

"Maybe she just doesn’t like him and is scared to tell you since you’re trying to set them up," Baekhyun said, furrowing his eyebrows when he brought his glass up to drink more but nothing flowed into his mouth.

"Do you want a second glass?" Chanyeol asked right away and Baekhyun looked up art him, pursing his lips. He should be the one to ask Chanyeol if he wanted a second glass, this was his home, he was the host. But he supposed this was just a replay of that night at the club, where Chanyeol ordered for him and for everyone else. He just liked taking care of people, it seemed. Baekhyun didn’t mind it at all.

"Sure," he said, a tiny word in a tiny voice because he shouldn’t want a second glass.

But he was stressed. He was tired. His whole life was already twisting around. This drink was so delicious. The way Chanyeol smiled at his answer was even more delicious. Baekhyun kind of wanted to drink his pretty smile.

"Maybe that’s what it is," Chanyeol said as he poured the drink into Baekhyun’s glass. "But then she wouldn’t be so flirty with Junho." He put the bottle down and grabbed the remote again. "He showed me some of their IM’s and there were some really cute messages in there so—" Baekhyun looked at him over the rim of his glass when he suddenly turned quiet. "You have channels playing stuff from the Old Age?"

He looked at the screen, narrowing his eyes. He didn’t recognize the characters on the screen, a few kids with parents standing in the snow, but it wasn’t hard to recognize it as something from the Old Age. It could be seen in the production itself, in the styling, even in the way the characters spoke.

"Yeah, I do have a few channels like that," he hummed, watching the characters advance towards what looked like some kind of factory. He hadn’t personally bought it, it came with all the porn packages he’d gotten.

Chanyeol put the remote down and let out a soft sound of amazement. "That’s awesome. I don’t have anything playing Old Age programs on television. I usually just search it all up online myself."

He looked really awed, gaze never leaving the screen, mouth parted just a little, enough to add to the surprise on his face and to the loveliness in him. He really was lovely. Cute. He actually was cute. How could someone so big be so cute? Baekhyun didn’t know. So he drank to that. So he asked him what this show was. Because he just knew he would like watching Chanyeol ramble about it.

And he did. Chanyeol told him the title, _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,_ laughed and pushed him alittle by the shoulder when Baekhyun said that was a really lame title. There was nothing appealing or exciting about that. Except the chocolate part. He hadn’t eaten chocolate in a while. Chanyeol promised to bring him some on his next visit and then proceeded to explain what the movie was about. Baekhyun wasn’t really convinced when he listened to him explain about golden tickets all around the world, chocolate that came alive, a really poor kid from a family feeding mostly on cabbage. That was a little boring.

But watching Chanyeol was far from being boring. It was exhilarating, in a way, it gave him the same effect as sipping on his drink. He was energetic, so passionate about this, his entire body illustrated every single sentence he pronounced. He looked even more passionate while talking about how popular and transcendent this movie had been back in the Old Age than he did while talking about his friends’ lives. Baekhyun liked both circumstances, liked the way Chanyeol only occasionally glanced at him throughout his explanation, half of him still watching a movie Baekhyun had the feeling he’d already seen a few times. He liked the way he moved his hands in circular, wavy, pointy motions while talking, the way he laughed at his own words before they even came out, the way he frowned, raised his eyebrows, hummed, licked his lips, tilted his head.

And Baekhyun also ended up liking the movie as well. As soon as the doors opened into some kind of mechanism with children-shaped dolls that started singing, he was gone. The song was just so catchy. Chanyeol was the one to start singing first, causing Baekhyun to almost spit out his drink in laughter. He was so excited about it, bouncing on the couch, making Baekhyun bounce just a little along with him. He was so adorable. And handsome. He was silly and handsome. The song was stupid and catchy, Baekhyun started singing along to it somewhere in the middle, chewing out most of the words.

The song was stuck in his head by the time it ended and a man with a huge hat and a weird haircut started speaking. Chanyeol pointed at him and introduced him as the Willy Wonka the song was about, talking about how the actor used to be really famous.

Baekhyun didn’t really mind the random information Chanyeol spilled to him throughout the movie. It made it more interesting and truthfully, he liked watching Chanyeol more than watching the movie. There was just so many things to see in him. Baekhyun soon had to blink a few more times to properly see him. It was his third glass and he was almost done with it. He liked Chanyeol telling him the CGI of the movie were pretty impressive for that time period, liked Chanyeol telling him about how he kind of wanted to put Willy Wonka in his pocket and protect him forever. Baekhyun kind of wanted Chanyeol to put him in his pocket too. Because Willy Wonka was indeed pretty cute whenever he scolded the little boy about mumbling, because Chanyeol was so big, surely there was room in his pockets for Baekhyun. There would be no sky to fear in there.

At some point, Baekhyun wondered out loud if Willy Wonka wanked with his gloves on. Chanyeol’s first reaction as to laugh as he repeated. Willy Wonka wanked. Stupid. Baekhyun laughed along. Then they debated about whether that glove would feel great or not while masturbating. Then, he asked if Chanyeol was satisfied with his own glove. Chanyeol’s shyness fuzzed in his cheeks and Baekhyun wondered if being drunk made him look at Chanyeol in more details or if Chanyeol had just always been so adorable. He kind of wanted to pinch his cheeks or pull on his ears.

By the time the Oompa Loompa song started, Chanyeol got so excited that he batted his feet and bumped one of them right into the coffee table. Baekhyun grabbed his arm amidst the laughter and followed when Chanyeol folded himself in two, resting his head on his knees. Baekhyun fell against his shoulder, quaked with Chanyeol’s laughter. He’d never felt an earthquake before. Maybe this was it. It almost gave him nausea but he couldn’t stop laughing. There was nothing funny.

Chanyeol straightened up abruptly and started singing the song as Baekhyun looked in awe at all the tiny men with the same face but different voices. So tiny. Chanyeol was a little tinier as he made big hand movements to accompany each word he sang. Baekhyun didn’t know the song but it was yet another catchy one, he hummed the rhythm and used different mumbles that made Chanyeol fall against him in laughter for a moment before he straightened up and stopped singing to stare at Baekhyun’s singing show. Baekhyun should’ve been a singer. He would’ve performed in clubs and earned lots of money and lots of people would’ve wanted to have sex with him.

Once the song ended, Baekhyun was a little breathless, a little dizzy from laughing and moving too much. They were so loud, so boisterous. Baekhyun had never felt calmer in his life.

Their eyes met. Baekhyun was so fuzzy from drinking it was a wonder his eyes hadn’t popped like the bubbles in his fourth glass. Chanyeol’s eyes though, they popped. They popped brighter against everything else. Brighter because they were just glistening just a little from laughing too much, a little prettier than anything else in this house because they were on Chanyeol.

They popped because they were widening. They widened because Chanyeol was getting closer. He was getting closer because Baekhyun really liked him. Baekhyun really liked him because he’d never been this close to anyone. Close, so close, close enough for him to feel Chanyeol’s breath on his skin, close enough for his lower lip to reach for Chanyeol’s, for his eyes to close because the illumination was so strong, so close, he just had to shut his eyes to protect himself.

It was just graze of skin on skin, just like holding hands except Baekhyun had never held anyone’s hands. It was a kiss when Chanyeol cupped his cheek and Baekhyun felt his mouth pressing on his, balmy, careful. The touch popped. Popped because Baekhyun didn’t feel anything else, anywhere else. Just the silkiness of Chanyeol’s skin, the fit of his lower lip in the dip between Baekhyun’s lips. Popped because Baekhyun hadn’t kissed anyone in so long. Hadn’t been held like that, immobile, just touching his lips with someone else in so long. Popped because Baekhyun had never kissed anyone so softly. Tenderly. Barely.

Popped because the last person Baekhyun had kissed had died.


	5. Five

Baekhyun broke apart from Chanyeol with a string of _no no no_ ’s.

Chanyeol’s eyes popped open and Baekhyun forgot to breathe for a moment. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all. He wasn’t supposed to kiss Chanyeol. He wasn’t supposed to kill Chanyeol. He wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol. His body rigidified, the fuzziness gone, the softness on his lips gone. They tingled but it was unpleasant, he wanted to sink his teeth into them but he couldn’t move a single part of himself.

Chanyeol still stared at him, still sat immobile in front of him. Eyes wide, lips parted, features tensed up. Baekhyun knew this. Baekhyun knew what came after this.

"No," he whispered, wheezed. Wheezed because that was what Chanyeol was about to do. "No, no," he said and when he shook his head, it felt like he ripped it apart from his neck.

Chanyeol parted his lips more. Baekhyun squeezed his eyes shut.

"But," he heard then and his eyes snapped open again. He almost heard the sound his eyelids made in his head. He wasn’t sure he heard Chanyeol speak correctly. They usually didn’t speak at all. "I thought—" A hand gesture. His body wasn’t swaying, wasn’t crashing forward or backwards or sideways. He frowned, looked down, looked away from Baekhyun who registered his words much longer after he spoke them. Speaking. Chanyeol was still speaking. "Since yesterday, we— I mean—"

Chanyeol was speaking. He wasn’t dying. He shouldn’t be able to speak. He should be dead by now.

He wasn’t turning pale, wasn’t turning sickly. He was turning more agitated, his ears were bright red.

"I’m sorry," Chanyeol said then, words mushed into each other. He shot up to his feet.

He didn’t lose balance. Still didn’t sway. Baekhyun still couldn’t move. Still felt stuffed, tied, stringed.

Chanyeol grabbed his jacket from where it was draped over the couch. Baekhyun was still stuck on the couch as he watched him stride out of the living room without glancing back at him.

It hadn’t worked.

He heard the door chime as it locked itself.

It hadn’t worked on Chanyeol.

It really hadn’t worked.

After a moment, he jumped to his feet and ran out of the house, heart leaping faster than his legs. There was no one laying in front of the door. There was no body in the stairs. He took the elevator back up to his apartment floor. There was no one there either. He opened the doors to the second elevator. Empty.

He went back inside. Dropped on the couch. Stared at the television.

It usually happened fast, instantly most of the time. Sometimes it took a few seconds. He’d stared at Chanyeol for more than a few seconds.

His kiss hadn’t killed Chanyeol.

He watched a little girl turn purple and puffy from chewing on gum. It didn’t make sense. Chanyeol surviving to his kiss didn’t make sense.

"Would you like me to make you come?"

Baekhyun side-eyed the holo-ad disinterestedly. He’d already come once a few minutes ago. And this was a pretty weird hologram. He didn’t like her hairstyle, didn’t like something about her face.

_"It’s a sign from the Heavens!"_

He stepped away from her, continued walking, but she materialized in front of him again almost instantly, this time swaying her hips as she walked backwards.

"I can make you come. Without even touching you. Just buy me at the nearest Toy Store."

He sighed. "I’m on my way to buy you right now. Go pester someone else."

She hummed, hard enough for a man to glance at her when he passed by. Baekhyun met his gaze. It was rare to find people who hadn’t turned off the sexual holo-ad option.

_"The New Gods for a New Era!"_

"Hearing that gives me so much pleasure." She turned to him, grabbed her own breasts, giggled them in her hold. He really disliked unrealistically giggly breasts. She bit her lower lip, looked at him under her eyelashes. "I can’t wait to give some of that pleasure back to you."

And with that, she vanished in a gleam of blue and Baekhyun sighed again. He stopped walking, standing right behind the crowd gathered around a man elevated on some kind of stepping tool.

"It is a blessing, it is a sign," he said, looking around, eyes rounded in a dimension of craze, hands gesturing widely around him. "The Heavens haven’t given up on us. They’ve sent us their newborns. And they’ve descended on earth, right on the footsteps of Holy Jesus."

The smile he had on showed just how convinced of his own words he was. But while Baekhyun found it all absurd, nonsensical, he could hear the people around him murmuring, breathily, heavily repeating that word. Jesus. They probably hadn’t thought about that guy even once since their birth. Until all of this.

"They’ve seen the Hell that Earth was becoming," the man continued, voice trembling as much as his finger did on his last word, as he pointed around him in a grand gesture. The smile was gone, his wrinkly features were rippling into a frown, into the twist of discontent lips. "But they’re going to save us. All we have to do is believe in them. They’re going to fix everything that is wrong with our damned world."

"Then how come we haven’t seen their face even once yet?"

The voice cut through the man’s preaching as sharply as the switching off of a displeasing hologram.

Baekhyun turned around, facing the rest of the crowd. There’d been no one behind him when he’d settled here only seconds ago, now it was full of people, more people who were listening to whoever this man was. It didn’t matter. There was a lot of preachers now, a lot of protestors too. He walked out of the crowd as quickly as he could, unwilling to witness a fight or even become the victim of one. This morning, he’d seen in the news that the number of arrestations had risen considerably. It’d already been high enough before all of this.

He looked up at the neon signs of a restaurant while passing by, pursing his lips. He hadn’t eaten anything since last night. He’d merely engulfed another pack of chips before going to bed, still in silence, still replaying what had happened between Chanyeol and him. Or what had _not_ happened.

He still didn’t understand how it had not happened. He zigzagged between tiny gatherings of people in front of the cinema. Why had it not worked? Moans were coming out of a Toy Shop, too loud and unrealistic for it not to be from an ad. Was he broken? Were his lips broken? He’d only wanted to take a walk, a freshly artificial breath of air, but he was already tired of all the disorder in the streets.

He avoided First Avenue, took the smaller streets to head back home. Why hadn’t it worked? They’d kissed. Chanyeol had kissed him. Baekhyun realized. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that Chanyeol had kissed him. But Chanyeol had kissed him. Which meant Chanyeol was attracted to him. Which wasn’t really surprising. Baekhyun had never fathomed the thought of Chanyeol _not_ being attracted to him. He hadn’t fathomed the thought of Chanyeol being attracted to him either. Baekhyun never really thought about this kind of things. He just got to the point, right into the pants of whoever was across from him. But this was Chanyeol. Not a sex worker, not really a target anymore. They’d seen each other a few times, talked, and Baekhyun may have gotten a few sexual signals from him, but Chanyeol had kissed him so carefully.

And he hadn’t died. Why hadn’t he died? Baekhyun could barely even be happy about it when it made no sense.

"You haven’t paid me yet, asshole."

He stopped in his tracks, listened, turned his head to the right, where the sounds were coming from. An argument. He could catch most of it. At least on one part.

"Just fucking leave me alone if you’re not gonna pay."

Two forms at the end of the alley. It wasn’t dark, it wasn’t narrow, but it was empty save for those two people. A woman dressed in extravagant but sparse clothing. A man holding onto her wrist and shaking her.

"Just do your fucking job, whore."

Baekhyun closed his eyes for a moment, sighed. Yet another sex worker treated like trash, like an object. A toy. He hated this. Just last month a client had harassed a girl from the Love Shack. He opened his eyes again and the man had her pressed against the wall despite the stream of curses coming out of her lips and the obvious refusal marked all over her body.

This was his occasion to check. He engulfed into the alley in quick steps.

"She refusing you?" he said, even if he was a bit too far from them still. He wanted the man to stop paying attention to her as soon as possible.

He looked up at him from where he’d been shoving his ugly face in her neck. Ugly from his attitude but also mostly ugly from the pure rage and insanity traced on it by the bushy frown he had on. Baekhyun glanced at the woman, heard her heavy breath, knew it was from exertion as much as it was from fear.

"She’s not," he said, putting a hand on her bare shoulder, glancing down Baekhyun’s body. "What the hell do you want? Can’t you see we’re busy?"

Baekhyun caught it instantly. A man wouldn’t be looking up and down his body like that if he wasn’t potentially interested. Baekhyun knew how to make the difference between a hostile gaze and an intrigued one. He stood a few steps away from them and shrugged, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head in nonchalance.

"I was just wondering if you would share," he said, stepping closer, slowly. He didn’t know if the man had a weapon on him. Baekhyun was vulnerable against weapons.

"Share what?" the man spat out, a bit delayed. He pressed his body closer against the woman’s.

Baekhyun glanced at her, quickly, looking away at the horrified width her eyes grew into.

He moved closer, closer until he could put a hand on the man’s arm, drag it up his shoulder. He didn’t move, didn’t push Baekhyun away, didn’t approach either. He stood there, immobile, staring at Baekhyun whose stomach was curling into itself. If this didn’t work, he had no idea what he’d do.

He should wait until the man made the first move, wait until he was sure it would be okay. But his heart was racing, his hands were very cold, and Baekhyun just wanted to know if this still worked. He leaned forward in a jumping motion, crashing his mouth against the man’s hard enough for his teeth to accidentally bite on the flesh of his own mouth. The man pushed him away with two hands on his chest, the gesture weak enough for Baekhyun to barely sway on the sole of his feet but strong enough for the woman to let out a sound of distress.

There was no distress in Baekhyun anymore as he watched the wide eyes, the tensed features, the surprise in the gaze, and the flush of skin. It took barely a few seconds for the man to crash on the ground and spasm a little.

It worked. It still worked. His shoulders dropped, he wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand, and turned to the woman.

"Are you alright?" he asked, barely able to study her before she just ran off, tripping on her way out of the alley but not falling.

She was alright. Baekhyun looked down at the body. He was alright too.

It still worked just fine. Then why hadn’t it worked on Chanyeol?

He let out a sound, a loud sigh, and rubbed his hands over his face as he turned around, facing the wall, before turning again, hands pulling on his closed lids. The more he rubbed them the more he couldn’t stop.

He dropped his hands, blinked a few times, and walked out of the alley.

The crowd was still the same. He looked more carefully. It wasn’t the same. He took only a few steps once he was out of the alley and people were still rioting outside. Screaming, clashing against each other, worshiping, calling for blasphemy and lies. He saw a few officers standing by the side before charging into the crowd.

He shoved his hands inside his pockets and headed home, fast steps and head tilted down to avoid seeing the fiasco that was the world.

His kisses were still noxious. They hadn’t been for Chanyeol.

Or maybe they’d been. He gulped, chewed on his tongue for a moment. Maybe he just hadn’t seen it. Chanyeol hadn’t contacted him at all after leaving his house. Maybe it had just taken more time, for some reason. Maybe it had just taken longer to work. Maybe Chanyeol was already dead.

He bumped into someone, continued to walk without turning back to apologize, without paying attention to the crisis he heard or the slight pain in his shoulder.

He hadn’t checked. He hadn’t messaged him. Maybe Chanyeol was actually dead. He had no way of knowing. He swerved to the left to avoid broken pieces of a glass bottle and caught himself at the last moment before bumping into someone else. He quickened his steps. Maybe he had killed Chanyeol.

He swallowed, once more right after. His knuckles dug into the fabric in the inside of his pockets, hard enough that he should stop before ripping his jacket, hard enough for his knuckles to hurt just a a little.

He didn’t want to kill Chanyeol. He didn’t want Chanyeol to be dead. He was nice. Sweet. Really nice. Baekhyun enjoyed him, his presence, his existence even. He hadn’t talked this much to anyone in awhile without having sex with them. It was novel. This was friendship. Chanyeol may not think so but he was Baekhyun’s first friend. A friend he would very happily ride if the occasion presented itself, maybe, but still a friend.

But maybe Chanyeol was dead and he was neither a friend nor someone Baekhyun could ride anymore.

He stopped right in front of his apartment building, pulled the keyboard out of his P-watch and typed a message.

**[Chanyeol]**

[Hey]

He waited a second. Typed more.

[How are you?]

This was awkward. Very awkward. But Baekhyun couldn’t just ask him if he was dead. Baekhyun didn’t even know how to behave with someone he’d refused to kiss. If Baekhyun refused to kiss someone, a few orgasms still ensued afterwards. But there’d been no orgasms last night, not a single one. Chanyeol had looked very disturbed when he’d left. Or at least Baekhyun thought so. He hadn’t really been able to truly pay attention to the way Chanyeol looked when he’d left. All he knew was that he’d looked alive.

He waited, waited, waited, stared at his screen, and then dropped his hand. There was no need to wait right in front of the apartment building. He pulled the door open, entered, pressed on the elevator button, waited more, glanced at his watch, entered when the doors opened, waited as the elevator went up, glanced at his watch before finally slapping his hand against the screen, hiding it with his palm.

He didn’t like this. This gave him stress. Baekhyun wasn’t a stressed person, never encountered anxiety in his life. He never encountered danger, worries. It was always the same thing. Wake up, wank, kill someone, have sex, eat, sleep. Always. A routine. Every single day of his life. A habit.

A habit he’d steered far from, a long time ago. A few days ago at most. That was a long time. He disliked all these changes, these breaks in the habit. He got out of the elevator still holding onto his watch.

It was only once he was home, sunk on his couch, that he let go of it. He didn’t look at it. it didn’t vibrate. Why wasn’t he replying? He usually replied so fast. He replied even faster than Startrack. Baekhyun usually just stared at his screen for a short moment before an answer popped. This time it didn’t. He turned his television on, let the noise of a random show fill the silence of his house, only disturbed by the sound the drag of his jeans made against the couch every time his leg bounced up and down. Constantly.

He fell back, rested his head against the backrest, slid down, leg still jittery, looked up at the ceiling. It was so white, after a moment of staring at it, it just seemed closer, like it was descending towards him, like it was about to engulf him whole.

Sitting up, he snapped and looked down at his watch. He unlocked it, stared at his own message. Stared at the little check mark right next to the bubble.

His message was read. Chanyeol had opened his message. Had read it. He was live.

Baekhyun ruffled his hair, scratched his forehead, sighed for so long it turned into a groan towards the end. Chanyeol was alive. Probably. No one else but him would open up this message. Or maybe not. He couldn’t be sure. Could he?

But even if he’d read it, Chanyeol hadn’t replied. He waited. No reply. He was ignoring him. If Chanyeol was alive, he was upset at Baekhyun. Understandable. Unpleasant. His fingers moved before he could stop them.

[I just wanna know if you’re okay :(]

[Are you okay?]

[Please just tell me if you’re okay?]

He wrote an additional message before erasing it. This was ridiculous. He just wanted to make sure Chanyeol was okay. This would haunt him even while watching porn. He didn’t even want to watch porn. He just wanted to know Chanyeol was alive.

He stared at his screen, watched the check marks confirm that his messages were read, waited, waited, and it was only five minutes of wallowing later than a message appeared on the screen.

_[I’m doing pretty alright no need to worry.]_

Baekhyun pulled the corners of his lips down, jutted his lower lip out in displeasure. He didn’t like the sound of this message. He didn’t like how un-Chanyeol it sounded.

But his body was relieved of the churning stomach and his leg stopped jittering. He threw himself down to lay on the couch, tucking his head on the armrest. Chanyeol was alive. He was alive. He was alive and writing to Baekhyun.

It hadn’t worked, it truly hadn’t. But he was alive and somehow, that was so comforting to realize that Baekhyun didn’t even want to think about why it hadn’t worked. And Chanyeol was upset at him. They’d been doing great. Baekhyun had been doing great for someone who had no friends he hadn’t had sex with on the first meeting. Besides Chanyeol.

He didn’t really want to lose Chanyeol. Not because Baekhyun desired his body. Just because he was Chanyeol. A really pleasant addition to Baekhyun’s life. The only point of tranquility in his life nowadays, he realized. Because Chanyeol wasn’t complicated, was very kind. Just calming.

He typed a message, erased it. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. He couldn’t just tell Chanyeol he’d been about to have a mental breakdown when they kissed because he thought Chanyeol was going to die. He couldn’t tell him he was seemingly the only person Baekhyun could kiss without killing. He couldn’t tell him that he found that very weird. But very hot. Weird. Hot. He had no idea why Chanyeol was immune to him but it made him feel strangely great.

It made Chanyeol even better. Even sweeter. It made Baekhyun even more determined to keep his friend.

[I’m really sorry.]

He stared at he screen, closed his eyes when he answer came.

_[About?]_

[About last night.]

[I didn’t mean to react like that.]

_[It’s okay. I kissed you pretty suddenly after all.]_

_[I’m really sorry about that too. I should have asked first, I didn’t want to do something you’d hate. It’s my fault for just assuming things. I hope you’re okay too.]_

This sounded bad. He really didn’t like the way he sounded. He wanted the sweet, caring Chanyeol back. This was a sweet but sad Chanyeol. Or at least that was how it sounded. This one made Baekhyun feel a little sad too.

[I didn’t dislike it.]

He hadn’t liked it either. He hadn’t even had time to feel it properly. But right now, at this moment, as he thought about kissing Chanyeol without him dying over it, Baekhyun didn’t dislike the thought, the image. It was a really nice image. One Baekhyun found himself wanting to experience for real.

His answer was read but no answer came for a few minutes. Baekhyun stared at his fingers and wrote another message.

[Can you come over?]

The reply was instant this time.

_[What for?]_

That was a good question. Maybe Baekhyun was overreacting. He had no idea. He was just doing what felt right to him. But what for?

[So we can talk about it properly, if you’d like to.]

Or maybe Baekhyun just. Just wanted to see Chanyeol. Maybe he just wanted to make sure he was actually alive. Maybe he just wanted to see the only person he’d kissed without killing. It was intriguing.

_[I’m not sure that’s a good idea I’m sorry.]_

Baekhyun pursed his lips.

[I just want to make sure we’re okay.]

_[You mean as friends?]_

Baekhyun stared at the message. Yes. Basically. But also he wouldn’t believe Chanyeol’s okay unless he saw it with his own two eyes.

[If you don’t mind.]

[Please? We don’t have to talk about it for a long time.]

[We don’t even have to meet here, we could agree for somewhere outside like a café or something.]

[Of course I won’t force you. I’ll understand if you refuse.]

He’d just be a little sad maybe. Because if Chanyeol didn’t want to meet him now, he wouldn’t want to meet him later either. That meant his friendship with the only person immune to him was ruined. Because he’d find out about the immunity. Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing, after all.

_[Alright. I don’t mind talking about it, it might be better actually.]_

_[Your house in three quarters?]_

Baekhyun sighed again. This time, it was a febrile sound that diffused its lightness through his whole body.

He sent his agreement and dropped his hands on his stomach, looking up at the ceiling.

This was happening. He would see Chanyeol. He’d have to find an excuse. An excuse to explain his reaction to him. Baekhyun hadn’t thought about that first. Maybe he should have. He turned to lay on his side, facing the television, mindlessly watching two characters strolling through the mall. He had no idea what excuse he could give Chanyeol.

But it was okay. At least, they would talk. He could improvise. Just say that he hadn’t expected it. Maybe it would be believable if he said that he’d just been upset Chanyeol had interrupted the amazing movie to kiss him.

He didn’t know. He couldn’t really think. This was yet another break in his redondant life. But this one, it wasn’t really a break. Just an addition, the sneaking of something new. Something that might be giving him a headache now, but that wasn’t unwanted. This, he didn’t mind.

He switched the channel to porn, jerking off sometimes helped take his small headaches away.

By the time the doorbell rang, Baekhyun’s headache was gone but the jumpiness was back, except this time it wasn’t just his leg but his entire body. He supposed it was just happy to be seeing Chanyeol. And very scared that Chanyeol would stand in front him with a missing arm or melted skin or a puffed up face.

But when Baekhyun opened the door, it was just Chanyeol. Chanyeol with his messy hair, his big glasses, a hoodie with strings tied into a few holes here and there, and the jumpy gaze. He was endearing. Baekhyun took a good look at him, studied him as they stood in front of each other in silence. He really was endearing. And okay. He looked okay. It was the same exact Chanyeol as yesterday, with the tall body. Except Baekhyun had felt his lips against his for a moment he barely even remembered. Except now, Chanyeol didn’t really look at him properly, avoiding his gaze, only glancing at him, standing there awkwardly. Shyly. This was the Chanyeol Baekhyun had met that very first time in front of the Love Shack, embarrassed and stressed. But it wasn’t because of a holo-ad. It was because of Baekhyun and it didn’t feel nice.

Now that Chanyeol looked uncomfortable in front of him, Baekhyun realized the progression they’d had, from a shy Chanyeol to one making the first move on him, kissing him first.

"Hi," Baekhyun said, managing to catch his gaze for a moment.

"Hey," Chanyeol replied, a short sound.

This felt a little awkward. But Baekhyun felt happy and relieved. It truly hadn’t worked. He felt curious and amazed. Because Chanyeol was standing in front of him. Baekhyun didn’t really know what he was supposed to do now. He’d just wanted to see Chanyeol. He’d seen him. But he didn’t want Chanyeol to just leave either. And it wouldn’t be polite anyway.

So he let him in, stepping back. He waited as Chanyeol silently took his shoes off and wore the same slippers he’d had on yesterday. He gestured him to follow to the living room and they both sat down on the couch, a little less awkward since the television spoke in their stead.

Chanyeol was sitting just a little far away from him, proper, back straight, knees touching, hands laced on his lap. Baekhyun was sitting normally. Just a little rigidly. He wanted to say something but he didn’t know what. He’d never been in this situation before. It was strange.

"I’m sorry," Chanyeol said, speaking first. Baekhyun had thought he’d remain silent until he did the first move himself. He was looking at him properly this time and he actually looked sorry too, with the tiny frown. The one that made him cute. "For yesterday. I shouldn’t have kissed you so suddenly. I understand your reaction and I’m really sorry."

"I didn’t dislike it," Baekhyun repeated, meaning it as much as he had by message. He really hadn’t disliked Chanyeol kissing him. Knowing that Chanyeol wanted to kiss him was pleasant. Hot. It meant Chanyeol potentially wanted to do more than just kissing him. And Baekhyun wasn’t surprised. That was what he’d understood from their conversation while he’d been with Minghao.

"Baekhyun, you literally screamed no at my face," Chanyeol said, with a small snort. It wasn’t mocking. He shook his head, smiled a little, looked directly at Baekhyun. "You don’t have to cater to me like this. I’m not really hurt by the rejection. Just very embarrassed." He stopped to scrunch his face then rubbed a hand over his thigh. "But not hurt. Just still very stressed out about it. But I feel better now that we’re talking normally and you don’t hate me or anything. These things can happen. I just assumed stuff on my own and that’s okay. If you want to remain just as friends, I’m perfectly fine with that."

Friends. Friends was great. Baekhyun would be very happy with Chanyeol being his friend, with the fact that Chanyeol too considered him as a friend. His first conventional friend. Not a prostitute, not a target, not someone he met while playing Nebula. Someone he’d actually become friends with after a few meetings. Like normal people.

But Baekhyun kind of wanted to kiss Chanyeol.

"But I kind of want to kiss you," he said, gaze obeying to his words and falling on Chanyeol’s lips.

They were just lips. Baekhyun had seen a lot of lips in his life, from very up close. But Chanyeol’s lips were cute. The lower one was puffier than the upper one. He had a small mouth. His lips were often parted, they remained so once he was done speaking, they sometimes remained so while he was listening to Baekhyun talk.

But they were lips that he could kiss without taking life from. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe Baekhyun should check one more time. They were. He knew. He still wanted to kiss Chanyeol who looked at him, no particular expression on his face. His lips were parted but his gaze never left Baekhyun’s.

"You want to kiss me?" he repeated, furrowing his eyebrows a little. For a moment, all Baekhyun coud hear was someone laughing on the television. "What’s the difference between today and yesterday then?"

"Nothing," Baekhyun said, stopping to think for a moment. Chanyeol’s frown deepened. "I just panicked yesterday. But now, kissing you would make me happy. Like very happy."

Chanyeol’s features unraveled, he looked down for a moment , biting on his lower lip. The one Baekhyun would love to feel against his own. He looked at Baekhyun again for a moment, just looked. Baekhyun looked back at him. Much less calmly. He had to focus his entire brain into not letting his leg bounce.

Chanyeol leaned closer to him and Baekhyun’s body mimicked the movement instantly, the tension tightening but spreading out at the same time. He slid closer to him on the couch, supported himself with his hand on the cushiness of it, between them. Chanyeol’s hand, his hand wasn’t on the couch, it took Baekhyun’s cheek into a cup of warmth. He thought he would melt from the touch but then their lips pressed together and Baekhyun’s eyes closed while the rest of his body was caressed by a sharp wave of energy.

This time, Baekhyun didn’t have to count the seconds in his head as he kissed someone. This time, he could only feel the person he was kissing while anything else flowed out of his body in regular waves. The stress, the tension, the confusion. Everything. Everything was blown away by the comfortable touch of Chanyeol’s lips against his. But it wasn’t a sudden wind, nor a storm, kissing Chanyeol, at first, felt like breathing. Not his breathing, not the choked wheezes of someone suffocating, it felt like Chanyeol was breathing right against his skin, caressing him even in places they weren’t touching.

Baekhyun pressed his lips more firmly against his, felt Chanyeol’s thumb flicker against his skin, just a small rib on his cheek, tiny but effective enough for Baekhyun to wish it would expand. Chanyeol’s hand felt really nice. His lips felt even better when he pulled away for a moment, just enough for Baekhyun’s lips to remain parted, dazed, until he covered them with his mouth again.

It was odd. Baekhyun moved his lips, let them tremble against Chanyeol’s, let them press, let them embrace the slenderness of Chanyeol’s upper lip. Slender yet soft enough for Baekhyun to truly feel it against his skin. This was really odd. It felt like they’d been kissing for a long while. Not because this gave him a kind of fulfilling pleasure he’d never felt before, but because Baekhyun’s kisses lasted three seconds at most. It had been more than three seconds now. He didn’t need to count it to know. He didn’t need to count at all. Because it felt like time didn’t matter anymore, it felt like there was no time restriction anymore. Just Chanyeol’s lips, Baekhyun’s lips, bathing in each other, anchored in a moment of tranquility.

And Baekhyun had never taken the time to feel anyone’s lips either. But he could feel it now, with every peck Chanyeol left, on his lower lip, on his upper lip, on a corner of his mouth. He could feel it now, with every touch of Baekhyun’s lower lip, against the skin right under Chanyeol’s own lower lip, on the pulpous center of the dip between on his upper lip. He could feel the skin, could feel the texture, could feel the way his own lips reacted to it. Warming up, sensitizing, numbing at the same time. Tingling.

These were just lips. Baekhyun had kissed a lot of lips in his life. But he’d never felt a kiss before. This was the simplest form of kissing, just lips, presses, pecks, the sliding of a mouth against another, but he’d never felt so much before. So much contentement, so much sensation, the palm against his cheek, the thumb caressing a tremble into his skin, the care Chanyeol’s lips landed on his. So much happiness. He was happy. He had no idea kissing someone could make him feel like this, eager for more even though their lips were still allied, fuzzy in his torso despite not moving a single centimeter from fear of disrupting the alignment of their lips. Desired.

This made Baekhyun feel more desired than a beg, a boner, a moan did. Because there was no pleasure. He was providing no pleasure to Chanyeol, just a kiss, a touch, and Chanyeol was still holding onto him, still taking it so easily. Because Chanyeol wasn’t kissing out of euphoria, Chanyeol was kissing him just to kiss him, just to touch his lips with his own.

Baekhyun didn’t feel any pleasure, or nothing in a physical level, but he loved this. He loved this so much. It pervaded a different kind of bliss in him, one he couldn’t spot, one he couldn’t describe, one he wanted to experience forever.

Baekhyun had kissed a lot of lips in his life. Now, he wanted to kiss Chanyeol’s lips for life.

He hoped Chanyeol felt the same way. He hoped Chanyeol felt something.

But Chanyeol didn’t feel anything. He didn’t feel pain, or horror, or shock, or death.

Baekhyun pulled away, parted his lips, panted, leaned closer again, jutted out his lower lip until it grazed against Chanyeol’s. He waited a moment, breathed out through his nose before yielding to the urge and pressing a peck against Chanyeol’s lower lip. It wasn’t really a kiss, Chanyeol’s lips remained parted, it was just a touch. An enjoyment. A treat.

He moved away, opened his eyes, met Chanyeol’s gaze. His eyes were so pretty from up-close. His eyelashes were so delicate, his hand felt so big against his cheek.

"Don’t you feel anything?" Baekhyun whispered, or spoke, or yelled. He didn’t really know. He could barely hear himself, could barely feel anything about his mouth besides the tinkle on his skin.

Chanyeol tilted his head, pulled Baekhyun closer when he trailed his palm down, letting it adjust against Baekhyun’s jaw instead. He hadn’t really pulled Baekhyun closer. Baekhyun had just gravitated closer to him, gratified for that natural gesture by the faint rub of Chanyeol’s thumb against his lower lip.

Baekhyun wanted to take his thumb into his mouth. But he also wanted Chanyeol to kiss him again. So he left his mouth available for him.

"Just that you’re a good kisser," Chanyeol said and Baekhyun swore he felt that voice vibrating in his body.

He felt nothing else. "That’s it?" he asked, studying the other, trying his hardest to wake his brain up and pay attention to him. No wheezes, no worrisome redness, no veins bulging out. Just a handsome face.

A handsome face that narrowed his eyes at him, cottony lips that pressed together in a barrier against a huffy laugh.

"Do you expect me to fall in love with you with just a kiss or something? Do I look like an easy man?"

That really wasn’t what Baekhyun had thought. He’d thought maybe Chanyeol would die with just one kiss. But he hadn’t. Not after one kiss, not after two kisses, nor after three.

So he laughed. Just laughed. Because Chanyeol had no idea. Because Chanyeol wasn’t easy but very forgiving for accepting to kiss him. Because kissing just made him feel so dizzy and tingly. Because kissing Chanyeol was something he’d never thought he’d need until now.

He laughed, shoulders quaking, body swaying towards Chanyeol’s, hand barely catching him, still between them on the couch. He felt just as drunk as yesterday except there was not a single drop of strawberry fuzziness in his blood. Just kissing Chanyeol fuzziness.

"Why are you laughing?" Chanyeol asked, his last word chopped into laughter as he watched Baekhyun’s arm.

His lips were a little too far from Chanyeol’s now, he was leaning towards his chest from the force of his laughter. He strained up again. Chanyeol still held onto his arm, still looked at him with a grin saturated with confusion. He liked the fact that Chanyeol was touching him. Chanyeol had never really touched him until today. He liked these hands on his body.

"I’m just happy!" he chirped, grinning so hard his eyesight got reduced by the puffiness of his cheeks pushing against them.

"You look kinda high," Chanyeol snorted, dropping the narrowed eyes to go back to his usual smily expression. The corners of his eyes crinkled with lines of cuteness. It was the first time Baekhyun saw them. He wanted to kiss, kiss Chanyeol and maybe also those adorably crinkles that were so cute, they definitely deserve a very non-toxic kiss.

He leaned closer to Chanyeol, letting him carry his weight with the arm he was holding.

"I’m hoping to get high on your kisses, babe," he said, with the cheesiest tone he could muster, allowing himself to pucker his lips afterwards. He’d never made kissy faces at someone before. He could make kissy faces at Chanyeol now.

Because he could kiss Chanyeol right after. He could kiss Chanyeol as much as he wanted to. Baekhyun barely felt anything else in his body besides his lips. He was too light. He could probably fly without the help of FlyShoes.

Chanyeol snorted at him and leaned back, still holding onto his arm but giving him a twist of the lips.

" _Now_ I’m even farther away from falling in love with you."

Baekhyun didn’t react, didn’t say anything. He just let his kissy face fall against Chanyeol’s. He kissed more chin than lips and felt like he was seconds away from crashing against Chanyeol’s chest but it was okay. Because Chanyeol laughed before properly adjusting their lips together. Baekhyun pressed harder against his mouth, more firmly, until he was sure he could feel him again with every single peck, catching himself from falling by putting a hand on Chanyeol’s thigh.

Chanyeol’s lips curved against his. It was weird. He could feel it. Because suddenly the area he kissed thinned out, the skin was still soft but not as much, tensed. A smile. He could actually feel Chanyeol smiling against his mouth. Baekhyun kissed it. He kissed the happiness on Chanyeol’s mouth. He matched the curve of his lips to it, let his euphoria press against Chanyeol’s in a kiss, and another, and another.

He moved his other hand to push himself closer to Chanyeol. He kind of wanted to climb on his lap. But he made Chanyeol’s lips happy for now and that was enough. So he just brought himself closer, dragging his hand against the couch to dig it closer. Instead he felt something digging on his palm and the character who’d been speaking on television changed from a guy to a woman.

Instantly, Chanyeol broke apart from him with a hum. Baekhyun blinked his eyes open, feeling himself hanging in the air, feeling his lips hanging, uncovered, the happiness pulled away from them. It felt like a crash, but not a violent one, just seeing Chanyeol when he opened his eyes felt like landing on the ground with utmost attention and care.

"That’s _Twilight!_ " he said, pointing at the television, narrowing his eyes, adjusting his glasses. "I’ve been wanting to watch this for ages."

Baekhyun turned to the screen. A very dull-looking girl was talking to a very unhealthy and pale-looking boy on the screen. The colors looked kind of washed out. He would be offended by Chanyeol breaking their kisses for _this_ if he didn’t look so engrossed into the show already.

"What’s _Twilight_?" he asked, pressing his lips together, sitting up properly, body still turned towards Chanyeol.

"It’s about vampires. A movie. It was really, really big back in the Old Age I think. Vampires were a thing even then, can you believe it?" he asked, turning to Baekhyun for a moment before turning right back to the screen. "People who suck people’s blood are truly timeless. We still have shows about them centuries later." He stopped, let out a small _woah_. "I’ve truly struggled so much to find the full version of this movie, I can’t believe it’s just playing on your television. I’ve heard that it’s completely lame and disappointing but very funny. And cheesy."

Baekhyun snorted. Chanyeol truly had cut off their kissing to nerd out about vampires from the Old Age.

He crossed his legs, turned his body so he could see the screen better while still keeping himself mostly facing Chanyeol. He liked watching Chanyeol talk about this. He got extra fluffy whenever he talked about the Old Age. Fluffy. Just like their kisses. He liked this almost just as much as kissing Chanyeol.

So he made a compromise with himself. He kissed Chanyeol for a moment only every time the scenes switched. Sometimes he kissed him mid-laughter, just because he wanted to know how that felt like. Sometimes he just looked at him, stared until Chanyeol looked away from the screen and pecked him on the mouth. He really liked being able to ask for a kiss.

And he could confirm Chanyeol was a much better kisser than Edward seemed to be. He felt very much alive whenever their lips met, contrary to what Bella looked like every time she got closer to Edward.

By the time Baekhyun closed the door on Chanyeol’s retreating, but very broad back, his lips were tickling and he was feeling strange. Strangely happy.

He had someone to kiss now. He could kiss someone now. He knew how nice kissing felt now.

And it was Chanyeol. He liked that it was Chanyeol. He pressed his back against the door and pressed his lips together. Maybe he should’ve asked Chanyeol to stay over, just so they could kiss more. But they’d already kissed so much. Or maybe they hadn’t. Baekhyun kissed people for no more than a few seconds, he had no idea what amount of kissing would be considered as _too much kissing._

Maybe he hadn’t kissed Chanyeol too much. He’d kissed Baekhyun on his own three more times after saying he had to leave and get back to work. And then Baekhyun had kissed him two more times. Maybe they should’ve kissed more. He sighed. He kind of missed it already. He pushed himself from the door. He had no idea kissing could feel like that. Like something special. Not like a nonchalance, a touch, a procedure, an obligation, a means. Kissing just felt like kissing. Fulfilling. A little special, maybe.

He went to the living room, teeth sinking into his lower lip. Chanyeol had bit into it earlier, just a little, just enough for Baekhyun to feel it, for Baekhyun to crave it now that he was gone. Kissing could be a craving too. Not a repulsion.

He looked down at his P-watch, pursing his lips as he stood in his living room. He had ten message notifications from Startrack. He quickly swiped through them, not even reading their content. Maybe he should’ve also offered to kiss other body parts. Maybe he should ask Chanyeol if he was free tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after. Baekhyun would really like it if he could fit kissing him in his schedule.

_"Category is…"_

Baekhyun looked up from his watch and at the television. It had turned on on its own. He wasn’t standing in front of it, he was standing way out of the sensor’s reach, behind the couch. He didn’t remember what channel it had been on when Baekhyun had switched it off. He remembered it. It had been that Old Age movie channel, a movie he didn’t remember the title of had started right after Twilight and Baekhyun had switch it off so Chanyeol could finally kiss him properly, could show Baekhyun what kissing someone properly was.

_"… divinity and absolution."_

But there was no movie on the screen. Only people whistling, cheering, loud music playing as a woman made her way down the runway, body covered in crystals and diamonds and silver, gleaming gems. The most famous model of the decade in Systia, Park Sooyoung, had no room on an Old Age channel.

_"Tens, tens, tens all across the boards!"_

Ten, ten ten, flickering on the screen like the flash of an old camera, like a dysfunctioning laser show.

Baekhyun watched the gleams on her body, on her voluptuousness, watched the length of her arm as she pointed to the side, still walking, strutting quickly but gracefully to the rhythm of a trashy song. Shining. Shining more. Bursting with brightness, so much that Baekhyun had a hard time keeping his eyes open. He blinked, blinked, heard cheering, heard applause, inside his own head, trembling in his skull. He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, took a deep, loud breath in.

When he opened them again, Park Sooyoung was gone. Instead, Yunho’s fierce gaze was looking into his. Gone was the runway and there was the most beloved and praised dancer of the year, looking right at him. Baekhyun blinked, brought his hand in front of him, grasped the hem of his own shirt. He hadn’t changed the channel.

_"Do you know what the most important thing in life is?"_ Yunho asked him, breathless, sweat twinkling on his temples, on his chest, the three belts squeezing his waist glimmering in perlescence. Baekhyun had seen this outfit somewhere before. New Year’s show? _"Not running away. Not giving up. Running away is much more tiring than suffering. Running away is much more cowardly than suffering."_

The microphone he was speaking into seemed to echo his voice through the entire house. Baekhyun hadn’t turned on the speakers spread around the apartment. Just the TV.

Yunho took a deep breath, the sculpt of his chest calling for Baekhyun’s attention. It was shining too much, gold, silver, bronze all at once.

_"Running away is useless. You gotta do what you gotta do. If it’s in your essence, if it’s in the core of your very existence. You have to do it. You will do it."_ His voice was steady, firm, a tension upon which Baekhyun could feel himself standing. Yunho closed his eyes, threw his head back, and when he screamed, Baekhyun felt himself tumbling down. " _You_ will _do it."_

He opened his eyes again, chest tight, throat even tighter. Eyes were looking right into him again. This time, Baekhyun couldn’t put a name on this face. Eyes that were sharp, not smiling but malicious. Not happy but vicious. Black hair, blacker eyes, thin lips that stretched into a grin.

_"You will do it."_

It echoed. Baekhyun didn’t know who the person on his screen was. His lips didn’t move. He reached down for the remote on the table, eyes still stuck on the gaze that chained him up, that worried his heart into a fast beat. He didn’t like this.

_"Tens, tens, tens all across the board!"_

Cheers. Baekhyun couldn’t even blink. It felt like the television was approaching him. It felt like he was getting pulled closer to the television. But he could feel the rigidity in his entire body, could feel that he wasn’t moving. He pressed a finger against the button on the remote. Nothing. It felt like the face on the television was expanding, narrowing, widening, closing in on him. He felt small, big, stretched, tiny. He pressed harder. Cheers all around him, the signature click of cameras firing at him. No light this time. Just a stretching slyness, a honing gaze.

He couldn’t switch the television off. He couldn’t look away from the screen. He was petrified.

And then it moved. The man’s lips moved. Not a man. Just a face. Just an existence amongst cheers, an echoing voice.

_"You will do it, Baekhyun."_

A flash. Blinding. He closed his eyes again, his own name echoing behind his eyes, high, low, strident, boisterous. Not as off-putting as the way his body felt, like someone was pulling on his skin, like someone was prickling his ears, like something was crawling up his legs, down his throat, like something was stretching each of his fingers until they stringed up into blood, like wind was crying in his stomach, like the walls of his own home were pushing into him, flattening him.

He dropped. He fell. He slid down. He felt cushiness under him, felt his stomach pushing against his heart. That wasn’t possible. He didn’t even feel his heart anymore. He didn’t feel anything, didn’t feel himself opening his eyes but jumped back when he saw the same nameless man as earlier sitting in front of him, arms crossed, one leg thrown on top of the other, gaze just as cutting. Besides him, another man. Hoodie, brown hair cut very short on his forehead, eyes as white as porcelain, glistening, almost highlighted in a shade of blue.

Baekhyun wasn’t nauseous. He couldn’t feel his own body, he couldn’t even feel his own breathing. He straightened up, put his hands on the seat, looked around. A cair. They were in a cair. That, he could recognize. But the seats were an emerald green and out the windows, it wasn’t a sky that greeted him.

There was no sky. Numbers. Just white numbers on a black background. Numbers and letters crisscrossed and mixed and running and appearing and disappearing. Code. It looked like coding.

The sky was crumbling on top of him.


End file.
